So, I just got home from the amazing conference. Missing all of these people terribly, but forever thankful and will always stay in touch with everybody! Now, i got the idea to try my best to organize like a CVI get together/conference here at home in Iceland the year 2020. I have talked with some people and gotten positive reactions, so when fall is uppon us I'll go ahead in planning in more detail. I have created a facebook group related to this called ,,Let's make it happen! CVI get together in iceland 2020 <3" - so please add yourselves if you are connected to CVI in whatever way and think you might be able to lend us a hand in making this dream come true :) You can also read more about my experience at the conference at my own facebook page. When the conference was over I got the idea of starting a Q&A session here on my blog and today I will cover the first question I got :)
When you are learning new information, what media is most comfortable? Book? Electronic? Auditory?
First, Jennifer, shoutout to you and thank you for this question.
When learning something new - it matters to every single person how they do so. When you have CVI like me - or any other special needs, this gets even more important. For me, I never feel like I have a visual impairment, until I miss a step, bump into something, read the same line 20 times, if someone says ,,look!" and points ... ecc. ecc. In my day to day life - as I read, study, hang with friends, walk around in familiar places, or talk to people I don't recognize the impairment. However, after I realized I had it ( I have always known I was visually impaired in some way, but I never feel as much impaired as my doctors say) I found out that Listening is what i need to study the best. Now, I am one of the biggest readers you could know, I can read for a long long time BUT I find it very hard to concentrate. When we didn't know I had CVI ( well, for most of my life), and I had to study for an exam in school I either read for like 20 minutes at a time, then paused and started another session etc etc. Or even better (auditory), my mom or whoever was around would read for me or with me the material I was studying. As I got older and more home alone we got permission ( cause of my coexisting ocular problem wich is optic nerve athrophy) to the audiobooks at our library for the blind. I think that's one of the best things, but I always have to have the text also infront of me to be able to follow it. Even with the audiobooks I still have to pause after a certain amount of time. Also, not nearly all the books I studied with were available as audiobooks. Then I had to stick with the old method wich was way harder for me.I found out that listening to classical music while studying would calm me a little bit down and not make me as stressed as otherwise.( this works not all the time).When I started learning music the best way is absolutely clearly hearing it. Because of CVI I'm not abe to read sheet music. I have struggled the most with that in my life, both with methods of learning and teachers who do not at all understand. Here in Iceland there is soo little understanding of special needs, expecially CVI. So, until the teachers start to try more to understand I'll have to rely solely on my ears ( As I'll probably forever do, even if, for some miracle, I manage at some point reading the notes). The struggle with the system here in Iceland and the difficulty with the music reading and the teachers not understanding is a source for a whole other blog post - but for me auditory is the best way to learn. If i have to use text, fine, but I have to do it in a few sessions.Even better if I can listening to music while reading.
Again thank you for this question :)
Please continue to send me questions everyone! I'll cover them as soon and as best as i can.
Over and out for now
Dagbjört