Dealing with sighted family, friends and otherpeople

Insight Magazine )A Bi-monthly magazine for visually Impaired Person)
Tips and Techniques
Dealing with Sighted Family, Friends, and Other People
Katrina Silvestre

For a sighted person, sometimes it’s awkward to
offer help, or act naturally around visually impaired
persons, especially if that person doesn’t have much
knowledge about blindness. You can make it easier for
them. Here are some tips that you can do to help a
sighted person be comfortable with you.

1. Receiving assistance. It’s important to state
your needs as plainly as possible. Doing this will
clear up the awkwardness a sighted person might feel
when spending time with you. Tell your peers that if
they think you need assistance, they should just ask
you how they could help. Ask them not to make any
assumptions on what you need. By making this request,
you are asking them for the same courtesy they would
extend to anyone.

2. Walking with a Sighted Person. I’ve experienced
this on my first day at RBI. I saw a blind person
walking to RBI, and he has been having problems with
the tricycles parked by the sidewalk. So I offered
help, I said he could walk with me. But my problem was
I didn’t know about sighted guide yet. Good thing
was that he instructed me how.

So, instead of allowing a sighted person to grab onto
you while you are walking with them, tell the person
that it would be safer and easier if you would be the
one to hold onto their arm. Tell them about the
“sighted guide” technique. Let them know that
physical cues are usually all that are necessary to
signal where you both are going.

3. Receiving directions. Let your friend know the type
of information you want to receive such as directions
to where you are going – right, left, north, west.

4. Conversing with others. You may find that a sighted
person with no knowledge about blindness are at first uncertain on how to speak with you. They may address their comments to your sighted companion rather than speak directly to you. For example, you’re with a friend on a restaurant and the waiter came to ask for
your orders. The waiter would ask for your
companion’s order, but instead of asking yours
directly, he would ask your order from your companion.
They may also speak more loudly than usual. Why is
this so? The probable answer is that sighted person
relies so much on eye-to-eye conversion. Without eye
contact, it’s difficult for a sighted person to know
if you’re really conversing with him. So to
enlighten a sighted person regarding this, just let
them know that if they want to get your attention they
should simply ask you.

I hope these tips have been helpful. Don’t always
feel discriminated when there are times when sighted
people don’t seem to deal with the blind rightly.
They might just don’t know how. So we better
enlighten them about blindness and what blind people
could do.