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Blind, deaf teens explore career options - Newsday.com
Blind, deaf teenagers explore working world
Eight young people who are legally blind and deaf are midway through a summer program where they're learning about potential careers in such areas as graphic design, art education and child care.
The two-week program for teens on careers, technology, self-advocacy and independent living is conducted at the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults in Sands Point.
People who are deaf-blind "can do a lot of surprising things," says Kathy Mezack, supervisor of vocational services at the center.
Mezack says one of her roles is to help employers "think a little bigger" about what the center's participants can do. Often employers suggest jobs that are "way too small - [participants] have far more ability than that."
The students and adults who come to the center have "varying degrees of vision and hearing loss," Mezack said, and the key is "to optimize what they have."
On Thursday, four students used "job-shadow day" to visit Blumlein Associates, a graphic design firm in Greenvale. One of them, Rhoxanne Cajulean, 19, of Lynbrook, said through an interpreter that she aspires to study fashion or graphic design. A spring graduate of Mill Neck High School, Cajulean has Usher syndrome type 1, a condition in which a person is born profoundly deaf and experiences progressive vision loss. At this point, she has difficulty seeing at night.
Mezack told of one woman, totally blind and hard of hearing, who is now working as a mechanic repairing small engines at Sears' repair center in Melville - think vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, snow blowers. She makes the repairs after other workers diagnose a machine's problem. Another young woman who is totally blind and deaf interned recently as a customer service troubleshooter with 1-800-Flowers, where she made use of a Braille display strip in front of her keyboard that allowed her to read what was on the monitor.
- PATRICIA KITCHEN
Blind, deaf teenagers explore working world
Eight young people who are legally blind and deaf are midway through a summer program where they're learning about potential careers in such areas as graphic design, art education and child care.
The two-week program for teens on careers, technology, self-advocacy and independent living is conducted at the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults in Sands Point.
People who are deaf-blind "can do a lot of surprising things," says Kathy Mezack, supervisor of vocational services at the center.
Mezack says one of her roles is to help employers "think a little bigger" about what the center's participants can do. Often employers suggest jobs that are "way too small - [participants] have far more ability than that."
The students and adults who come to the center have "varying degrees of vision and hearing loss," Mezack said, and the key is "to optimize what they have."
On Thursday, four students used "job-shadow day" to visit Blumlein Associates, a graphic design firm in Greenvale. One of them, Rhoxanne Cajulean, 19, of Lynbrook, said through an interpreter that she aspires to study fashion or graphic design. A spring graduate of Mill Neck High School, Cajulean has Usher syndrome type 1, a condition in which a person is born profoundly deaf and experiences progressive vision loss. At this point, she has difficulty seeing at night.
Mezack told of one woman, totally blind and hard of hearing, who is now working as a mechanic repairing small engines at Sears' repair center in Melville - think vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, snow blowers. She makes the repairs after other workers diagnose a machine's problem. Another young woman who is totally blind and deaf interned recently as a customer service troubleshooter with 1-800-Flowers, where she made use of a Braille display strip in front of her keyboard that allowed her to read what was on the monitor.
- PATRICIA KITCHEN