The ECC: Webinar #6 This video is posted online with the following chapter markers: Chapter 1. Introduction - Introduction of Petra Hubbard, TVI and VRT with Region 10 Education Service Center. Chapter 2. ILS Definition & Resources - What are Independent Living Skills and the personnel and materials in your local area to help you teach these skills. Chapter 3. ILS Videos Part 1 - Contrast, reaching, labeling, spreading Chapter 4. ILS Videos Part II - Eating, Peeling, Slicing & Stove Safety Chapter 5. ILS Videos Part III - Threading a needle Chapter 6. Questions & Final Comments - Questions & Final Comments The ECC: Webinar #6 Transcript [ Start slide: ] Chapter 1. Introduction Kate: This is another in our continuing series on addressing the ECC, and today's topic is Independent Living Skills. We'll get started with that in just a minute. We've a wonderful guest speaker. I'm going to let Cyral introduce her in just a moment. [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] Cyral: Very quickly, it is my pleasure to introduce Petra Hubbard from Region 10. You all know in this state Region 10 has been an incredible leader as a group of amazing professionals on the Expanded Core Curriculum, developing documents and processes that we're all using, so it is particularly appropriate, I think, to have Petra speak to us on this topic of independent living skills. Petra, I'm going to let you introduce yourself and carry on. You have a lot to say. I don't want to take up your time. Petra: So prior to being a teacher of visually impaired, or TVI I'm probably going to say sometimes, I was a rehabilitation teacher of the blind, nowadays known as a vision rehabilitation therapist. I did that for ten years, both in the community and ‑‑ [Multiple voices]  ‑‑ in effect, my master's degree is in rehab teaching. So as you can imagine, this part of the Expanded Core Curriculum is near and dear to my heart. So the purpose of this webinar -- I'm addressing myself mostly to teachers of the visually impaired, and wanting to give you all a starter kit on how to assess, teach, and access various resources for teaching independent living skills. I'll be showing you a bunch of videos on some of the more specialized skills. So there are many excellent books, articles, and web resources available on this topic which can offer more comprehensive information, so you're just getting the starter kit version of independent living skills. [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] Chapter 2. Definition & Resources So I'm sure you all have some idea of what independent living skills means. Well, let me just throw out some words that may sound familiar. We're talking about cooking and food management, eating skills, housekeeping, clothing management, personal care, communications, personal record keeping, financial management, and home mechanics. So, why are we teaching independent living skills? Well, to be fully successful in life, everyone needs to know how to prepare food [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] use proper eating techniques, clean and organize work spaces and hello environment, and be able to dress themselves, select coordinated outfits, take care of their clothing, which includes needle threading and sewing, attend to their personal hygiene and grooming, and manage their money. The teacher of visually impaired is required to assess, provide instruction and/or obtain other resources to facilitate acquisition of these skills. [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] So, why is teaching children with visual impairment so important in this area of independent living skills? Well, first of all, fully sighted kids can access a lot of ‑‑ I know I'm preaching to the choir but I'm just going to say it. They can learn a lot just by casually observing what's going on around the house, whereas for a kid who is a hundred percent blind, or even significantly visually impaired, some of the things that they experience may not connect very well. So, let's use an example of frying an egg. You know, a sighted person would be able to observe mom or dad go into the refrigerator, pulling out the eggs, cracking the egg, getting out the pots and pans first, then cracking the egg, all that. But for a person who's unable to see exactly what they're doing, it could just -- could just be a series of predictable sounds, but they may not know exactly what those sounds are. So knowing how to perform and regularly doing age‑appropriate independent living skills is also important to the child's self‑esteem and sense of self‑reliance. It also improves the child's standing within the family, as he or she is seen as a fully contributing member of the family. The siblings will think that the division of labor is a little bit more fair. Doing chores at home helps to develop the work ethic. As the child learns to work under the supervision of their first bosses, the parents. Socially a student who's able to take care of themselves at school will be seen as more equal by their peers. Many independent living skills develop concepts that tie well into academic areas. Regularly performing chores gives the child plenty of practice on how to run a household so they will be better prepared when they have their own household. Our ultimate goal for students is full employment and independent living. I'd like to refer you to one of the things that has been included with your handouts, which is a little article I wrote called, Children with Visual Impairments, Do Them a Favor and Give Them Some Chores. [ Laughter ] So that article addresses one of the arguments that I just put forth, and it's addressed to parents. And I actually make copies and give them out at ARDs. I have given some of them to children to take home; I just don't know if they make it into the parents' hand or not. [ Laughter ] It depends on whether or not the student wants to do chores. [ Laughter ] Okay. So independent living skills are part of the Expanded Core Curriculum, and as such, it's not just a good idea, it is the law! And there are some laws, different sections quoted within the handout. I'm not going to read it to you because you can do that yourself. But I put it in there so you can refer to it if you want to talk to anybody about why you actually do need to address independent living skills, and not just, you know, accessing the Core Curriculum. Okay. So I have you convinced that independent living skills are important. So the question is, how do we fit of these independent living skills into the child's programming? Are you feeling overwhelmed yet? [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] The good news is that the Teacher of the Visually Impaired does not need to do everything. But I would say that a key part that the teacher of the visually impaired can offer is the assessment part of it. [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] And look in your handouts under resources, there are a bunch of assessments that you can access. So to get the process started, the Teacher of the Visually Impaired will need to formally assess the skills that the student has and what they need through observation and interviewing parents and other teachers. You can copy one of those assessments and send it home and hopefully you'll get it back so you'll have data to work with. The Teacher of the Visually Impaired does not have to provide all of the instruction. It takes a village, a collaborative team to address the many independent living skills. [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] There are many resources available in the home, the school, and the community. On the home front, the teacher of the visually impaired can consult with the parents on tips, tricks, and equipment that would be useful for particular skills. In Texas, we have DARS, the Department for Blind Service, and that's the state agency, if you're, you know, dialing in from another state, it may be called the Commission for the Blind or something similar to that. But anyway, DARS, the Department for Blind Service in Texas, they do have vision rehabilitation therapists that can provide instruction in independent living skills in the home. They also offer programs and events that incorporate daily living. In the school environment, there are many resources. The student might be enrolled in a home ec class [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] or consumer math class; and the teacher of the visually impaired can consult with the classroom teacher on adaptive equipment and techniques. Some of the students are on life skills or community based instruction classes, where independent living skills are taught, so the teacher of the visually impaired can meet with the classroom teacher and assist with developing IEP goals on addressing independent living skills, and then consult with the teacher regarding appropriate visual accommodations. If you're in the Dallas area, the American Foundation for the Blind has a model apartment that people can go visit and get ideas about helpful equipment for daily living skills. So in your community, there may be an agency that serves blind people, or people with visual impairments, that may have a similar resource. Texas School for the Blind offers summer programs that address daily living skills, and Region 10 Education Service Center where I work offers different events in the Expanded Core Curriculum, which some of them do involve independent living skills. So your local School District or ESC may also offer events that address the Expanded Core Curriculum. Now, if, despite all of those lovely resources that you have available to you, it's determined that it really is best that the teacher of the visually impaired provide direct instruction to the student, you may consider time before or after school. Maybe there's a class like study hall or office aid period where the student can be pulled out for independent living skills training. It may be appropriate to develop a program of instruction during the summer. So this is not with the expanded school year, but it's a summer IEP to address skills that there's no time for during the school year. So as far as the resources available in the school setting, start looking around to see what looks like stuff you can use. You might find something in the teacher's lounge, maybe there are resources in the home ec room that you can access maybe while the home ec teacher is having a conference period. Maybe you can use some of the equipment in the life skills or community based instruction classes where they're likely to have kitchen and laundry equipment. So maybe that's available at various times of the day. So maybe the Teacher of the Visually Impaired can give a direct lesson then. But you don't necessarily have to have, you know, a stove and an oven to teach daily living skills. You could do a lot on just a table or a table with an electrical plug, and all of the videos that I've done, they're all done on a table. So I've listed a bunch of ideas in the handout of what you can do with just a table or just a table with a plug or just a sink or a toaster. The microwave is around, too. You can use those. And you can also bring in appliances. So, now I would like to talk about some general recommendations, and then we're going to go into the videos. Adjust lighting where it's needed. [ End slide: ] [ Start slide: ] Develop the habit of keeping things organized. Cabinet and oven doors and drawers should always be kept closed to avoid accidents. Also, if you have a dishwasher, that always needs to be kept closed, too. Doors should be fully open or fully closed for the same reason. And hazards such as scatter rugs should be removed. Now we're going to start going into the videos. The first couple, one is on contrast and the other is on reaching skills. Chapter 3. Demonstration Videos [ Start video: ] Petra: One general consideration you may want to use with a student that has low vision, is to add contrast wherever possible to make things more visible. You can do that with a contrasting plate, against a contrasting -- place mat, and as you can see contrasting utensils. I'm sure you can think of many ways contrast can be employed. One tip you may want to show your student, is how to reach for things safely. This is a hot cup of coffee. We don't want someone coming around, blind, from the top, trying to find their hot cup of coffee. Right? I suggest that you have fingers closed, together like this, not splayed open like that, fingers closed like this, down on the table, and then search. If they're splayed out like this, some -- something can come between and hurt the little webby part. So, also by coming from down below, you may move it just a tad, but you will not actually knock it off. There are many ways you can make conventional items in your home accessible. I happen to like using this T‑shirt decorating paint, which I got from a craft store, a local craft store -- less than two bucks a piece, and they'll last you a long time. Shake them up! Sometimes you need to poke them with a paper clip to get that nozzle going, but it really works. Now here's an example of how I taken a conventional timer -- which belonged to my grandmother, by the way, and I've made it accessible by putting marks here. If you can see that, five, ten, fifteen, I made a longer line. I've taken conventional measuring cups and I've made them accessible. There's one dot for one cup. Notice it's underneath the handle, not on top. This is -- gets less action. Okay. Two dots for half a cup. Three dots for a third of a cup. And guess how much for a fourth cup. Four dots. Notice I've gotten rid of the two‑thirds and three‑quarter marks. One thing that you can use these for is for marking appliances, so this is a typical stove knob. Notice that I've made a mark where everything is supposed to line up with. And then always make sure you mark the "Off" because that is the most important position. The most important position! And then ‑‑ oh, this is oven not a stove, but anyway, I would suggest not marking every single line on here that's possible, because you're only using 350 and 400 on a regular basis. And notice I have used different lengths of line. You can use marks on all different appliances, like your crock pot and your toaster oven and your electric skillet. You can use other materials besides this. You can use moleskins from Dr. Sholl's cut into strips. You know, you can get some of these symbols -- feel-and-peel symbols from APH that will work on your microwave, and you can also put braille on your microwave. Organizing your food for easy identification is critical, but it does have its limits. It's going to be difficult to tell Del Monte or whatever brand of peas from the carrots from the corn, etc. So that's where labeling comes in. There are different ways of labeling. You can use magnetic strips and attach braille to that, and put it on the can itself; either on the body of the can or the top of the can. However, in terms of ease of actually getting to the label, when this is all stuffed in a cabinet, you may be better off with a label that sticks out. So you can kind of reach in there and get to that label easier. I highly recommend making reusable labels, by the way. After you have used an item, you can take it and put it in a jar or box, or if it's magnetic, you can throw this on your refrigerator. There's your list! This has been created with ‑‑ it's actually high marks, it's raised, but you could use a Sharpie marker to make it large. And this is made with Permabraille, also with print. So you may be wondering how you're supposed to mark your TV dinners, since those little elastics, you know, the standard ones you get, would be very tight around it. So, here's one thing you can do, you could just take a standard elastic, put it around your TV dinner -- get those bread fasteners -- bread-bag fasteners, and then tape your braille or large print label to that. So this set-up is reusable. And -- you don't have to worry about it coming off if you've taped it. Also, you can use these different techniques, that I just demonstrated with the can, to label medicines. You don't have to get all that fancy. Sometimes you just want to know the difference between your shampoo and your conditioner. Okay. You can just use one for the shampoo -- one elastic for the shampoo and two for conditioner. Why those numbers? Because you use this one first and this one second. The next topic is pouring. There are a lot of ways to tell the level of a liquid in a container. What I would suggest when you first start working with a student is to actually have just enough that it will not spill, so they'll achieve success. But of course it would be wise to work over a tray to continue these skills. That would make both you and the student feel more secure. You can tell the difference ‑‑ you can tell the volume by putting your finger in the top. The container should be in contact with the glass before you start pouring. Now, let's just say -- it's easier to feel when your finger is dry because it's difficult to feel the difference between wet and wetter, and also if there's some kind of temperature difference between what you're pouring -- hopefully something cool -- and your finger. You can warm up your finger by putting it under the warm water, if necessary. You can also put a ping‑pong ball or an ice cube to float on the top. You may want to bring a variety of containers for your student to experience. We're all familiar with water bottles, but what about pitchers? Feeling the spout and getting it lined up and then going together like that. Okay? These are awfully heavy when they're full, and sometimes it's a little bit harder to -- to line up, and to -- control. So, in this instance, you may want to start with your glass like this and come down like this on the edge of the sink, and then -- and then push it up like that. Also, big soda bottles -- you can't even really hold them, they kind of collapse in on themselves, so you kind of have to tuck up -- let's say this is it -- tuck them under your arm and then do that over a sink. Next we're going to talk about spreading. If you're spreading peanut butter on some white bread, that is going to tear that bread up. So what I'm going to suggest is that you start with frozen bread, because that starts -- you know, that's a lot firmer and the student will have success rather than torn‑up bread. Moosh! Okay. This is a little bit more substantial bread. So I have not frozen it, or toasted it, toasting is another way to firm up the bread a little bit. Okay. This is peach jam. So, have your student find the middle. I'm sure they'll be able to do that, but touching tactually on the outside. Now, it is often easier to have the student use a sun ray pattern with the back of a spoon, rather than a knife; because if you think about it, with the knife, if you're going to get -- go -- you have to have a lot of complicated movements where you ‑‑ move the knife at a particular angle, and then you have to move your arm, and there's a lot of that. But with a spoon, it's just -- see I'm not moving the position of the spoon, I'm moving where it's going. So you can use a sun ray pattern where you start in the middle and you go out, or, you know, any kind of systematic pattern, maybe checker board, that'll work too. [ End video: ] Chapter 4. Eating, Peeling, Slicing & Stove Safety [ Start slide: ] Petra: The next series of videos will talk about eating, measuring, peeling, slicing, and stove safety. [ End slide: ] [ Start video: ] Petra: Okay. When eating soup, here's my best advice. Don't try to bring a full -- ladle full of soup up to your mouth without spilling a single drop. That's difficult whether or not you've got a visual impairment. Here's my best advice. Get your ladle full of soup. Don't hold it up and show the world. Tip the spoon away from you. That will let some of it come off, and then you have a better chance of bringing it to your mouth without any spillage. All right. Next I'm going to talk about how to cut up a piece of meat or a pancake or something like that. Now, for something like ‑‑ for doing something like this, you may want to use some modeling clay. You can teach eating techniques without actually having food food that you prepared. We're going to pretend that this is a meat or pancake or something like that. Okay? First of all, the student should feel where it is, the six o'clock position is usually a pretty good place for the meat. Okay. So then they feel the edge, feel the edge, and then come up and then in just a little bit. And then they need to do like a semicircle this way. Okay. So without actually cutting the fork itself, you know, it's a little ways away from the fork. The top can touch, but not the bottom. Then do a semicircle. Okay? Now, that feels pretty good to me, not looking. Okay. So then, put the knife on top of the meat and drag the food away. Okay? If there's a little piece of gristle or something, you'll feel the resistance. And things are not going to go flying, there will be the resistance, but your steak's not on the floor! Yum! You may want to use your knife or a roll as a way to push your food up onto the fork. So this is the European way of eating. So anyway -- knife in one hand, fork in the other. Fork comes around and feels what it is that you're trying to eat. I've chosen shells for this instruction, but you could also do something like this with your student. You don't have to cook for them. You can have a bunch of dried shells that you can use over and over. Okay? Get it up on there. Give it a little shake, so if there's something that's a little bit loose, then it'll fall right back down with the rest of the shells, and it won't drop on it's way up to you, the eater. Okay, If you're just doing uncooked pasta with your students, then you can actually ask them to, you know, dump it into a little bowl or something like that. Okay. Give it a little shake, and into the bowl. So they're practicing their scooping. Every once in a while, as a person with a visual impairment is eating a meal, they should push their food in towards the center, so if everything is getting a little bit -- straying toward the outer periphery -- they can capture it again. Sometimes there'll be some foods that are a little bit more challenging than others. Say the meatball! That's sometimes hard to capture, if you just try to scoot it around with a fork, or find it with a fork, you'll be all over the place looking for that thing. Look at this. Knife and fork here. Oh, you can feel it. Pretend that this is a round meatball that wants to get away. Well, it's a slippery banana slice and it wants to get away, anyway. So you can use your knife to capture the piece, and then use your fork to stab it. There you go. Salad can be one of the most challenging foods. You never know exactly how big the leaf piece is, especially if you're going out to eat, or you're eating at somebody else's house. At your own house, you can control how small or large the leaves are in your salad and how big the different other things that you put in, but -- when you need to make sure -- you know, if you're getting a great big leaf, this can really -- get all over you. What I'm going to suggest, is that as a matter of course, take the knife, take the fork -- noticing a theme of using both utensils? Put the knife on the one side, the fork on the other, and have them cut across the center. Then do a few more systematic stripes across. Oh, well, that's good! But, wait, there's more! Give it a quarter turn -- do it again. Now, these are manageable pieces. Tah‑dah! Let's talk about measuring spoons. They can be marked in a way that's similar to the measuring cups that I showed you earlier. So you don't need to bother marking the table spoon because it is so much larger than the others that it's easily identifiable. So one dot for the teaspoon, two dots for half a teaspoon, and four dots for a quarter teaspoon. These ones happen to be actually pretty visible with someone for low vision, so that was a lucky find. So one question that we have is, 'How am I going to measure vanilla?" or something else that's equally expensive, without wasting a lot of it? As you can imagine, if you're trying to pour the vanilla into your spoon some of it may get spilled. So I'm going to suggest that you pour it into an alternate container. And you can actually leave it there and store it, or put it in the container, measure it, and then use a little funnel to put it back into your previous jar -- sorry, bottle. Okay. You remember these? You can bend them at a 90‑degree angle. This is a spoon bent at a 90‑degree angle -- I didn't want to bend my up -- sorry. You can go straight down, straight up, and there you go. Beautifully measured! All right. You've probably seen the marked measuring cups, which I am very proud of. [ Laughter ] I like using graduated measuring cups, as opposed to, you know, a big two‑cup measure, because this is unequivocal -- this is a cup; not like, "okay, let me feel the little marking on the outside," and "Oh, how does that line up with what's going on in the inside?" But you may still have questions about -- how do I measure milk, and what do I do about spillage? Well, you can work over a bowl, and whatever is left over you can funnel back into your milk container. Or if you're okay with you know losing a few drops down the drain, then that makes it simple, and then you have fewer dishes to wash. Which is always a good thing. These ones happen to be marked pretty nicely. For a person with low vision, this might work perfect for them. Now I'm going to talk about peeling food. Use a good, sharp peeler. Don't use a dull one. That does not make it safer, because a dull peeler or a dull knife is less predictable than a sharp one, and less controllable. Okay. Do not touch this part where the blade is because that will interfere with the swivel action of it. Okay. It's all about being systematic. So do your peel. There's a peel. Wow! You can tell your student to feel the difference between the peeled -- the part that you peeled -- that they peel, and the part that's not peeled. Okay. And every time, a little bit of rotation. Okay, get that done. Now -- it may be difficult for some people to feel where the peeled part is and the non-peeled part, so that can be facilitated by putting it under water -- run a little water and it feels easier to tell. Then you do the same kind of thing with potatoes. Do it away, or if the person has enough control, they can do it towards them, you know, just has to be controlled a little bit at a time. Now, an alternate to peeling is scrubbing. Next we're going to talk about cutting. Yes, putting a knife in the hand of a blind person! How can this turn out well? Well, you may want to start out with a non-sharp knife, so you're more comfortable and your student is more comfortable and their parents and their other teachers are more comfortable. Start with something really that's easy to cut, like a banana, Okay. So here's a banana. Have them feel the end of the banana with their finger, with the knife. Pull back with the finger away from the edge to whatever thickness they want, and then put the finger nail down to mark it. Then bring the knife up to match the finger, leave the knife there. You can then pull away the hand -- they can pull away their hand -- and then slice -- straight down or back and forth. Okay? I'll do that again. Notice I haven't lost anything yet. Now we're going to get a little bit more adventuresome. This is a sharp knife! Sharp knives are better to use than dull knives, because they're easier to control. They're more predictable. So, here we're using a banana which is easy to slice. So we're transitioning over. Now, feel the edge with a knife and your finger -- move your back -- go up -- feel the top of the food with the knife -- draw back, and then cut. Feel the edge of the food with your knife, and with your finger. Figure out how far in you want to go. Cut. Feel the edge with your finger and your knife. Draw back to the thickness you want, and then you can bring your hand back a little bit further. As you get better, you can just do this with your knife and feel the thickness with your knife and not actually even have to get your fingers involved there. Next I'm going to talk about stove safety. What? No stove! I know. Sometimes that's how it is in your high school or whatever school you're in. You see these things? These are lids from some cookie tins. We're going to pretend that they are stove burners, and you can do that with your student, too. Pretend that they are stove burners! Okay, with different sizes -- you can show there are different sizes, and you want to make sure that you match the size of the pot to the size of the burner. You don't want to have like too small of a pot on too big of a burner, because then you have a lot exposed. You've got all the heat coming up that's going to melt your handle, and -- it's just a waste of energy. So let's talk about centering the pot on the burner. Okay. You can do it cold -- with a cold burner, and put it on there -- cold -- and feel around -- and there you go. You can also show your student how they can use the handle end of a wooden spoon to feel at 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9 o'clock; or they could, you know, feel -- if it feels like it's ready to slide off. We're going to talk about how to turn fried food. Okay. Here we have our mock meat, which is actually a slice of bread, which you can use bread or something else during instructional time. Okay. Feel where the item is with your utensils. Okay. You can use the fork to steady the food as you try to get the spatula underneath, so it's not like ‑‑ you're not chasing it around the pot. Okay. You just have to control it. When you are turning, don't try to flap it down like that, because that's ‑‑ you know, that's kind of an advanced skill. Start out with controlling it more with a fork. Perfectly in control! As your student gets more advanced, say with a pancake, they can start by lifting the pancake, bring it out to the edge of the pot -- fry pan -- and then flip it to the center. [ End video: ] Chapter 5. Sewing [ Start slide: ] Petra: Hi. This is Petra. I know that we got a little bit of a slow start so I think we're going to have to maybe do some -- maybe judicial cutting out of various videos from this particular presentation. However, they will be available in the archives, later on. Some of these things, I've just done such a beautiful job on the handout of writing the tips that maybe you don't need to see it, for real. But I would like to skip forward to needle threading. Video number 27, if that's possible. Kate: Can do, Petra. [ End slide: ] [ Start video: ] Petra: This is one of my favorite things to teach. Why? Needle threading? Because -- it's kind of symbolic -- lots of people think, "Oh, I have a visual impairment. There's no way I'm going to be able to thread a needle!" That's not actually true. These are self-threading needles. I've tried different sort kinds of things, like spread-eye needles and other kinds of needle threaders. This happens to be what my clients have preferred after having tried other things. Self‑threading needles are available in conventional sewing shops and also catalogs that have materials for people with visual impairments. So roll the top of the needle between your thumb and pointer finger. Put that in a bar of soap -- which this is not, it's cork. Put that in. Stab it there and give it a quarter turn. Okay, what do I do with all this positioning stuff? Self-threading needle has a groove in the top where the thread is suppose to go. Then there's a little channel, and then there's the eye of the needle that the thread gets pushed down into. So, by rolling it between your fingers, you've positioned it this way and stuck it in your soup. Then you give it a quarter turn. Now it's positioned like this. It's ready for your thread to come in there. Right? Here's the thread. It's smaller than my arm. Okay. You want to operate it, keeping it taut between your back fingers, not just trying to hold it between your front fingers. Okay? These are going to be controlling it, but this is going to give you tautness so you know where it is. Start at the bottom of the needle. Get to the top. Oh, look, it is wanting to go in the groove! Put a little downward pressure. Slide your fingers out of the way, and then press down. You're going to hear a click. It is threaded. [ End video: ] [ Start slide: ] Chapter 5. Questions & Final Comments Kate: Petra, do you want me to keep going? Petra: You know what, I think that you needed some time to wrap up, and I'd like to give people an opportunity to ask questions if there are any. The ones that we didn't have a chance to watch today, those will be archived. Cyral: Great. Petra: You'll have another shot at these. Does anybody have any questions? Kate: I have to say, Petra, I think these are wonderful, wonderful tips that you're sharing with folks, and so even if you're not visually impaired, you know, there's some things that would help me, right now. And Twinkle says, "Any idea for the new flat surface stoves?" Great question. Petra: It is a great question. There are different ways of handling that. First of all, you can place your pan on the cold burner. I watched a video that one of the ‑‑ that was up on the web, and apparently you can feel a difference in the texture between the regular part and where the burner part is. So there's a difference in texture. So you could put it on a cold stove, or you can turn the burner on and then feel where the heat is from, feel where the heat is, and then put the pot on that. Cyral: Petra, I wonder -- this is Cyral and I wonder if there is some way ‑‑ something that's heat resistant -- it would have to be an amazingly heat resistant way to outline the surface on those new ones, so it's outside the hot area, but you could get an area of where the hot area is. Petra: Well, there are pot handle holders that are really designed for people that maybe have just one hand, and you could install that. They've got little -- suction cups. You could put that on the countertop next to the stove. Cyral: That's a great idea. Petra: Put a handle in there. Also, I'd like to offer that if you have any specific questions that I can address, you can contact me at Region 10 at Petra dot Hubbard, that's P‑E‑T‑R‑A, Hubbard, H‑U‑B‑B‑A‑R‑D, at Region 10 dot org. I want to thank the Texas School for the Blind for giving me this opportunity. I've really enjoy it, and thank you very much for all that you do. [ End slide ]