A new discovery: Identifying the voucher books

Being able to identify printed matter is probably one of the most challenging tasks for me, as a person who is vision impaired, but I can tell you that there are those infrequent times when I do catch a big break and I sure take advantage of them whenever they come my way.

The other day was one of those rare times when I had to be able to tell the difference between two specific voucher books.  At first I sought my mom’s help to tell me which was which and it was only when she pointed out that one had been used and that the other had not that I finally clued in.

Of course!  The used voucher book had stubs that represented where the vouchers were ripped out and the new one did not.  Good for me to have realized this. 

I explained my discovery to my mom and she agreed.  Now, whenever I need to use the second voucher book, and this is because they are vouchers made out to a different company, I’ll need to put a bit of tape on one of them and then I just need to remember which one has the tape on it.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advisor, wishing you a terrific day.

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Identifying the right bottle or jar

A daily challenge for me, but here is how I do it. When it comes to my fridge, I am careful to organize bottles by contents. For example: In order of jams, sauces, condiments, and so on. A jar of mayonnaise is easy to identify. Some jam jars have a unique shape, some lids and covers also have unique shapes, and so on.

I use such things as size, height, and of course smell of contents to help me out. Smell is always my last resort whenever I am unable to easily identify a certain bottle or jar. It is an ongoing challenge for me but one that I need to stay on top of.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan your friendly accessibility advocate wishing you a terrific day and urging you to go out there and share my thoughts with others. Visit www.nfb.org to learn more.

New Ways of Identifying

Now that I am barely able to see, I constantly have to find and come up with new ways of identifying things to others.  It is no longer possible for me to identify things by color so I need to let my fingers do the identifying for me.  The other day for example, I told my brother that his sweater was hanging in the coat closet and when he asked me which sweater we both hesitated at the same moment.  His first words were "O, you don't know which one" but my comeback was "the woolen one, with long sleeves, and workings on the front."

 

When I was able to see, and had enough vision to identify colors, my mom and others usually identified things to me through color.  It was the yellow book, the black shoes, the bottle with the green liquid, the tin with the red top, and so on.  Now, I have to come up with other ways to identify things to them and in turn, they are constantly coming up with ways to identify things to me. 

 

We usually communicate in terms of size, shape, texture, and where a certain thing can be found.  More work for both sides but it works just fine.  When I was a kid and as long as I can remember, my mom and I have used a very unique way for us to identify things to each other.  We identify things through incidents and memory and who has given something to us.  So for example; it's Gayle's bag because my sister-in-law Gayle gave me this particular bag.  It's Granny's dress, because the dress belonged to Granny.  It's mom's perfume because mom gave me the perfume, and so on.

 

Of course, there are other ways to identify things and there are devices out there that blind persons can use to identify things.  To learn more, visit:

http://www.independentliving.com

Or http://www.maxiaids.com

 

I'm Donna J. Jodhan your friendly accessibility advocate wishing you a terrific day.