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Chris Schiafone is totally blind, but he wasn\u2019t always. He had a little bit of vision when he was younger, and says he\u2019s fortunate to be able to remember what things look like. It means that if you were to describe the spokes on a wheel or the shape of a pear, that he can visualize that pattern or shape. For people who are congenitally blind (since birth), however, these are more difficult concepts, and they will require a different kind of description of something. It makes things more difficult, in different ways, for a myriad of visually impaired people. And Chris advocates for all of them. Everything he has been doing in his four years of psychology has centred around trying to make the field of psychology more accessible for students with vision loss. All this with the hope that one day, there is a correction to the under-representation of visually impaired STEM students.<\/p>\n
Chris is the CPA Campus Rep at the University of Guelph-Humber. He was formerly the Student Rep, a role now filled by his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Angelisa. Student Rep is just one of several roles Chris plays on the Guelph-Humber campus. He is also a committee member at Humber College for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. He was a presenter in Halifax at the 2019 CPA Convention where he and his brother were facilitators of a forum called \u201cUnderstanding the Needs of Disabled Students\u201d. And in September he presented, with his research team, a CPA-hosted workshop called \u201cMaking Science Accessible: A Co-Design of Non-visual Representations for Visually Impaired Students\u201d.<\/p>\n
All of this is, of course, challenging. But it was the challenge that drew Chris to psychology in the first place. He had just completed a diploma in social service work at Seneca College, and was looking for something that would test him in a myriad of ways. While he knew psychology would be difficult, he says he had no idea what he\u2019d be walking into on his first day.<\/p>\n
\u201cScientific content can be very challenging for somebody who is visually impaired. There\u2019s an average of about 11 images for every 1,000 words in a scientific textbook, like a psychology textbook. It\u2019s very difficult for someone who\u2019s blind to scale through that kind of material.\u201d<\/p>\n
While his passion for confronting and overcoming challenges was what drew Chris to Guelph-Humber and psychology, it was his Social Service work background at Seneca that he credits for imbuing him with the spirit of advocacy.<\/p>\n
Chris\u2019 very first advocacy project outside of psychology at university began almost the moment he got to Guelph-Humber. When Chris first started there, four years ago, there was no Braille in the building at all. So in his first semester, he spent the whole summer working with the CNIB orientation and mobility instructor trying to learn the building and the campus. Chris is a guide dog user, and what that means is that he has to learn the building himself, and then try to teach the dog. And once he got his schedule for school, he had to train the dog to know where his lectures would take place.<\/p>\n
Even once all those things were done, it was still very difficult. Every hallway had dozens of doors. Some lecture halls have two doors. Chris was still not completely sure he was walking into the correct classroom, despite the hours upon hours of orientation and dog training. So he advocated. Through the first semester. Into part of the second semester. Have Braille signs put up in the university building. He wrote up a document explaining it all, things like Braille signs are best suited to be on the side of the door near the handle so a person with vision loss can read the sign and find the handle at the same time.<\/p>\n
What is the psychological concept that blew you away when you first heard it?<\/strong> Do you have a sport that you like to watch or play, and what is it?<\/strong> If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it and why<\/strong> Top three\u00a0websites or apps you could not live without and why<\/strong> Favourite quote<\/strong> At the time, Chris believes he was the only blind student at Guelph-Humber. He says his younger brother had studied there previously, but he just managed and didn\u2019t worry about Braille. But for Chris, it comes down to different ways of learning things. Something that he takes into the rest of his schooling as well.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you do not have any vision, you start to lose out on some of the content that your peers have. That can even come down to learning styles, like if you\u2019re somebody who learns better by seeing a diagram, or a 3-dimensional model. The 3D model is fine, but the images are not there for somebody like us unless they\u2019re made into something tactile like a raised-line graphic. That\u2019s not something that traditionally just happens in the classroom, unless the professor has prior knowledge around accessible content creation and is really, really on the ball with inclusivity.\u201d<\/p>\n Now that Guelph-Humber has Braille throughout the building, Chris is confident and content in the knowledge that the next blind student who attends will have an easier time navigating the campus as a result, and that was reason enough to make sure it got done.<\/p>\n When we spoke for this interview, Chris expressed his love for music, and especially the work of Van Halen. He chose David Lee Roth over Sammy Hagar as his favourite lead singer, but that was a marginal call \u2013 it was the music he loved most. Sadly, Eddie Van Halen passed away from lung cancer shortly after we spoke. Just another thing to make 2020 a little bit more difficult.<\/p>\n Another difficulty is that COVID has forced Chris to do his 2020 schooling online, he\u2019s a little apprehensive. Mostly about how the online content will be structured by his professors. Chris is not the kind of person who tackles an issue when it arises. Rather, he\u2019s the kind of person who anticipates the issue ahead of time, and works out a way to ensure that the issue never comes up. Before starting any course, he reviews the entire syllabus and identifies the potential stumbling blocks along the way. He then meets with his professor to outline those potential challenges in order to have a plan in place. This may not be possible in the current school year, which presents a whole new set of tests for both Chris and his professors. He says he has a couple of particularly engaged profs; Deena and Amanda were extremely instrumental in ensuring access to their courses, even if it meant one-to-one time explaining challenges related to content specific to their Quantification and Neuroscience courses.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a big fan of neuroscience, which is where my recent Thesis research and CPA Workshop came from and a lot of my research stems from neuroscience. And in that class the professor, Dr. Mandy Wintink, did some things that were very simple, but very helpful. For example, the professor was giving a lecture on the neuron, and I was sitting there trying to visualize what it could possibly look like. How is it structured, where are the dendrites, all these different components of a neuron. Unless it\u2019s explained in very specific terms, it\u2019s challenging to picture what a neuron might look like if you\u2019ve never seen it or felt it. So Dr. Winktink went out and bought candy. And she put us in groups where we made a neuron graphic on a piece of paper using candy. 3D models can be very expensive, sometimes into the thousands of dollars. So it\u2019s not the expectation that we\u2019d have a 3D model of a neuron just sitting there. But she found a way to include me 100% in the class through a simple activity that is likely MUCH more cost-effective.\u201d<\/p>\n If there\u2019s one thing to know about Chris it\u2019s that not only overcoming challenges but also anticipating those challenges, is his thing. It\u2019s what he does regularly, and what he does best. We can be certain that he will continue his schooling, his advocacy work, and his exemplary work as a CPA Student Rep through 2020 and beyond.<\/p>\n Postscript: RIP, Eddie Van Halen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You might recognize Chris Schiafone from convention presentations and online workshops he has done for the CPA on accessibility for the visually impaired. Chris is the CPA Student Campus Rep at the University of Guelph-Humber, and is currently joining us all in mourning the loss of Eddie Van Halen.<\/p>\n
\nThe bystander effect, for sure. I\u2019d say that because we talk about humans helping humans, and about people doing things in society, organizations that are reaching out to help for every cause under the sun. But then there\u2019s this whole concept of the bystander effect, and it\u2019s like \u201cwell, I\u2019m not going to help, because somebody else will\u201d. And it\u2019s like, why would you wait for somebody else to do that if you can? I\u2019ve witnessed this personally, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s one of the most fascinating things. After I learned about it in school, I started to be more mindful when I was doing things, to see where\u00a0 this actually occurs. And unfortunately, it probably occurs more often than we\u2019d like it to.<\/p>\n
\nNot an avid follower, but I do follow hockey a little bit. I find it to be one of the best sports being commentated. There\u2019s a lot of talking, and I find it much easier to follow. I watched football before I lost my vision, but now I find following football too challenging.<\/p>\n
\nPossibly\u2026a journey through experience. I\u2019d call it that because I don\u2019t want to write it as \u2018look at me I\u2019m totally blind\u2019, but rather as a journey of someone who starts as a low-vision person, and ends up totally blind. What that journey looks like in terms of education, in terms of finding work, and finally in studying neuroscience. Finding out that I had a big interest in neuroscience, and what that meant \u2013 what I had to do \u2013 to make that happen. And the supports as well \u2013 you can\u2019t always do everything yourself. And we need help more often than we think we do.<\/p>\n
\nI use a few apps that are made for the visually impaired. One I just started using again is called BlindSquare. It\u2019s a GPS navigation app for people who are visually impaired. We can punch in addresses and it\u2019s almost like using a Garmin or a TomTom or another regular GPS device. Google Maps actually works quite well too, so I do use both, depending on which one gives me better data! Also, I\u2019ve always used Zoom, but since the pandemic started I\u2019ve had to get to know Slack and Microsoft Teams, sometimes at rapid speeds which included accessibility testing to make sure I am able to use them with Screen Readers.<\/p>\n
\nNo. I kind of have my own, that I live by. I actually closed my presentation at CPA last year with this one. \u201cKnow your goals and the pathway to get there. Don\u2019t let any barriers stand in your way. Persistence and a positive attitude will get you where you need to go.\u201d\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n