About Us Mission
The Picciano Method™ How
We Differ Validation
Blindness is the condition in which the visual process is prevented from functioning as it should. The role of the visual process is to receive information obtained through sight for use in a host of activities at the level of mind and body. When sight is impaired or lost, this process is interrupted.
Over the past decades, a number programs have been developed to aid people who are blind. The primary emphasis of these programs has been to “bridge the gap” between the non-sighted person and the sighted world. At one level they assist by providing services that meet the personal and medical needs of these individuals, while at another level they teach (adaptive) techniques using external “devices” to perform activities that, when sight is lost, are difficult. Some of these adaptive devices include the use of cane and guide dogs for travel, and Braille for reading, all of which serve as a substitute method for sight.
These techniques and strategies have proven to be valuable in helping people without vision (re-)gain some form of “normalcy” in their lives. They have assisted individuals in a variety of ways including academically and vocationally, in career development and job placement, and in improving their ability to move about their home and community, to name just a few. Yet, as the National Federation of the Blind advises, much more needs to be done. They point to the fact that, despite this assistance, there is still rising unemployment, functional illiteracy amongst tens of thousands of children and the exclusion of those who are blind from mainstream society. The NFB has called for “innovative solutions” to address these problems.
Up until now, the primary strategy in developing programs to assist people who are blind has been to use adaptive techniques to compensate for their lack of sight. The idea that this compensation could be accomplished by functionally restoring the visual process despite the absence of sight has not been thought possible.
In October, 2000, The American Center for the Advancement of the Blind, Inc. introduced a dramatically different philosophy and approach that markedly distinguishes it from the programs offered by other Centers and Agencies. Our program, which is known as The Picciano Method™, helps (re-)establish functioning at a sighted level by (re-)constituting sight related skills that are lost when blindness ensues. The Process that is taught by which this is accomplished is called Integrative Sensing™. Integrative Sensing™ utilizes the naturally occurring mechanisms that are normally responsive to sight. Engaging these mechanisms permits an individual with vision loss to become self-managed in their ability to effectively and efficiently interact with others and their environment. Through self-management, participants in our program eventually come to realize a greater sense of self-reliance, self-direction and independence.