Life Beyond Sight

According to the American Printing House for the Blind, in 2017, roughly 63,000 students in the United States were blind or visually impaired. The Iowa Educational Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired (IESBVI) exists to provide “support for students to successfully learn in and out of the classroom.” I am a visually impaired person with albinism. Until we found IESBVI, I was unable to walk in new places without holding my mom's hand and we were not sure how I would be able to live independently. IESBVI is helping me learn how to live independently. I am learning orientation and mobility skills, career and college planning skills, and sports and life skills.

Kyle Blackford, an Orientation and Mobility Specialist, has been and continues to be my trainer. He has taught me how to use a white cane to allow me to independently walk without tripping or running into things or people. He has taught me how to use my other senses to get a feel for my surroundings. By listening, smelling, and feeling, I can safely get where I want to go without getting hurt. I can safely cross streets, find where I am and where I want to go, and I know ways to get myself out of sticky situations. At restaurants I can read menus and order for myself, and at stores I can find signs and pay with cash or my debit card. Because of the cane, I can confidently and independently get around without relying on others to constantly guide me.

Emma Eaton, a Teacher of the Visually Impaired, has helped me research careers and colleges and prepare me for after high school. She has helped me research and learn what careers I am interested in. I have learned that I do not want to become a coder as my career, but graphic designing or mobile tech support are fields I am interested in. Emma is currently teaching me how to use a computer with JAWS, which is a screen reader for Windows. Now I can navigate a website without having to strain my eyes to read everything myself. Instead, JAWS speaks everything on the screen to me. She has taught me and continues to teach me how to prepare for life after high school as an adult with a visual impairment.

I attended four camps and two sports weekend retreats with IESBVI last year. The camps were of varying themes with sports, life skills, and other experiences. I was taught how someone who is blind or visually impaired can do some sports with different ways of hearing or feeling. I learned how to play baseball with a beeping ball and beeping bases. I learned how to play goalball, a sport with a thick hard ball close to the size of a basketball with a bell inside. The goal of the game is to throw the ball into the opposite goal and defend your goal, but everyone is blindfolded and it is played with three versus three people. I learned how the blind and visually impaired can participate in track and field events. I met many blind and visually impaired students with varying conditions and experiences. Some were confident independent students and others were not. Those who have some vision and see quite well were considered to be in Class C and needed little help; while others were Class A and could not see at all and some needed more help. Through the retreats, I was able to travel to Nashville, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri. These camps and retreats allowed me to experience living independently, see new cities, meet new people, and have fun with others who share similar experiences related to something we all have in common.

So if you are blind or visually impaired, there are groups out there such as IESBVI that can help you become successful and give you many opportunities. They will gladly help teach you how to independently get to where you need to go using a cane, transit system, your other senses, and tools such as your phone, a monocular, or maybe even a magnifying glass. They can help you succeed in a career you want to pursue. They also most likely have opportunities to meet others, grow together, experience new places and things, and so much more! Being visually impaired or blind should not stop you from trying new things or doing what you love. It should challenge you to push forward and prove to the world that you have amazing talents and gifts. My condition, albinism, does not limit me in being able to use my abilities and contribute around me.

About Me

Hello, my name is Leah Dykema and I am a Chinese 16 year-old high school sophomore with Albinism. I have the features of one with Albinism: blonde hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. I have the typical visual issues with depth and light sensitivities of an Albino as well as sensitive skin to sunshine. But I'm not just an Albino, I'm also an adoptee from China. I have lived in the United States since the age of three-and-a-half years-old and have grown up as a homeschooler in Iowa in a loving Christian family. I have two brothers who are married and one sister who is a sophomore in college. In my free time, I enjoy researching and staying up to date with the latest tech news (especially Apple), drawing cards and pictures of friends and family on my iPad, writing stories, answering both online and in-person questions about the iPhone and iPad, running my YouTube channel, photographing my Apple product collection, chatting or playing games with friends and family, watching YouTube, movies, and my favorite TV shows: Wild Kratts and Odd Squad.

Albinism comes with a great complimentary comment about my gorgeous hair, but it also has it's difficulties that must be faced and overcome to live a strong independent confident life. The biggest issue for me personally has been dealing with the many visual problems. I have 20/125 combined corrected vision and am considered functionally legally blind. These numbers are quite relative, based on a controlled setting in an optometrist office. My visual acuity fluctuates based on the situation.

Outside, I cannot see anything, especially in the middle of a bright sunny day. My darkest pair of prescription sunglasses only protect my eyes from the sun's rays, but don't allow me to see very well. My regular glasses really only allow me to see my phone and iPad screens, walls, big objects, and sometimes, if the lighting conditions are just right, parts of faces.

How Technology Changed My Life

I'm known by many to be a tech savvy Apple obsessed fan and expert. Apple's technologies have been the best and most important visual aid tools I have ever had. My favorites are the iPads and iPhones. I've been a user of these incredible devices since 2017. They have allowed me to read books, see things in the distance such as: plays, pins at the end of the bowling alley lane, signs and menus, and movies. I've been able to write, read, and draw with ease thanks to my iPads, which mean the world to me. With Apple's amazing accessibility features built right into every Apple product and the thousands of apps in the App Store and the help of YouTube to get me started and continually guide and teach me, I've learned to become a master user of the iPhone and iPad. Over the years I've learned to work today's technology to my advantage and I have to stop and thank God for the devices we all take for granted today alongside everything else he has provided for me, including a home and a family in a free country.

As the years have gone by, my vision has declined. My distance vision is non-existent and it gets harder and harder to see my somewhat small iPhone. In the last year, we have sought help from the Iowa Department for the Blind and Iowa Educational Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired to help me learn to live less dependently on my vision and more on my other senses. I've met some good friends and wonderful teachers and look forward to the coming last years of high school to continue learning from them. I am learning to walk with a cane as my guide instead of my Mom's hand, read Braille, navigate a city using public transportation services, taking care of where I live, preparing and cooking food, ordering stuff online, time management, and using my other senses to do just about anything else. I look forward to joining the Iowa Goal Ball team this year as I was just introduced to the sport and have absolutely loved it!

Something I've found challenging is fitting it and being understood. Making friends has always been hard for me as it is for many and finding the group I've longed for has taken years. For years I've felt like I am the only person with albinism here in my town and even in Iowa. I've also had a hard time finding tech savvy Apple fans like myself in-person. But I'm glad to now attend the Teens NOAH Zoom call where I feel like I actually fit in and have met some great people who are now my new friend group of Apple fans with Albinism who ironically are all adopted from China too! What a dream come true!

Now that I have shared my life with you, I would like to end with some advice and suggestions from my own experience. I suggest finding a group that can help you learn to navigate with a cane and not always rely on your vision for everything. Some wonderful visual aid apps I find extremely helpful on the iPhone and iPad are:
Magnifier: Apple’s built in visual aid app;
ReBokeh: a new app similar to Magnifier;
Seeing AI: Microsoft's iOS-;only visual aid app, which will read text aloud to you and more;
Learning Ally: my go to audiobook service;
Libby: my go to eBook app, which is used through a library card.
For writing, I use both Pages and Google Docs. I also use Google Sheets for my budget and my Apple collection master information spreadsheet and Google Photos to store and share memories, my Apple collection photos, and wallpapers that I find or draw myself. I highly suggest keeping your calendar on your phone whether that be through Google or iCloud or something else. And last but not least, learn to advocate for yourself without embarrassment and shyness. This is something I struggle with because some situations can be very difficult. Look for resources, ask for help from others, and find what works best for you.