Why do some blind children and teens make friends easily while others struggle?
Arielle Silverman, president of the National Association of Blind Students (NABS), shares her thoughts on this crucial topic and outlines a series of useful strategies. When I talk to sighted audiences about blindness, I am frequently asked whether I was teased or ostracized as a blind child mainstreamed into a public school. The topic of fitting in also comes up again and again in discussions among blind people and their families. Parents worry that their blind children will have trouble making friends. Blind youth often describe difficulty building meaningful, reciprocal relationships with sighted classmates. I am twenty-five years old and I have been blind since birth. I have experienced my fair share of lonely days on the playground and times when I stood on the periphery of groups, feeling that I didn’t quite belong. Yet I’ve discovered that true integration into the predominantly sighted community is possible if we as blind people approach the challenge armed with a positive atti
