Poway boy to compete in Braille Challenge

By: QUINN EASTMAN - Staff Writer | Friday, June 15, 2007 12:10 AM PDT ∞

POWAY ---- Harrison Tu hopes to flip his opponents without even looking at them.

Although he enjoys being part of Meadowbrook Middle School's wrestling team, Harrison, 12, has more of a mental challenge lined up next weekend: He will be competing in the National Braille Challenge, an academic pentathlon in Los Angeles sponsored by the Braille Institute of America.

Harrison, who was born blind, is the only competitor from San Diego County and hopes to add "national champion" to the row of prizes on his bedroom wall.

"I've been doing it for the last six years," he said recently. "Each year I make the finals, but I don't win."

He faces 59 other blind students from across the United States and Canada. The students are divided into five age groups stretching from grades one through 12.

The first-place winner in Harrison's group will receive a $3,000 savings bond and a "PAC Mate," a pocket-size computer device designed for blind people.

To qualify for the challenge, Harrison had to take a test at home. The top 12 scorers will compete in five categories: Braille reading comprehension, proofreading, chart and graph reading, spelling, and speed and accuracy.

The last category requires the use of a typewriterlike device called a Perkins Brailler, which imprints raised dots into paper.

"It's very quiet. There are proctors," Harrison said. "It's how I imagine final exam day in college."

Harrison began learning Braille in preschool. He was born with a condition called microphthalmia, which can be caused by several genetic mutations, according to the National Institutes of Health.

"One thing you learn about visually impaired students is that often they fall behind in first and second grade," his mother, Jennifer Tu, said. "It's because Braille is so difficult. I've been learning it, and I always have to pull out my cheat sheet."

About 5,500 legally blind children ----- that's one-tenth of the 55,000 legally blind children in the United States ---- use Braille as their primary reading medium, according to the American Foundation for the Blind.

"Much of the best assistive technology combines speech and Braille and requires knowledge of the Braille code by the consumer," a 2006 report by the California Department of Education states.

Harrison and his mother, who are Taiwanese, sometimes speak in Mandarin. Harrison also has been learning Japanese, partly because his father works for Sony.

On a recent trip to Japan, Harrison and his mother became lost in an airport, she said. But he was confident enough to approach the airport's information desk and ask for help in Japanese.

Harrison is by all standards an exceptional student. He enjoys playing piano and will be sure to advise a visitor about the latest open-source software for iPods.

He speaks matter-of-factly about which classes in school he finds challenging.

"Math is a blind kid's worst enemy," he said. "Especially geometry."

He said he has an aide assist him throughout the school day. He attends class with seeing students and makes use of a transcribing service to read his school assignments, he said.

One area where he is on his own is the wrestling arena. It's a competitive one in Poway ---- Poway High is known as a perennial wrestling powerhouse.

"It's great that he's found a physical sport he can get involved in," said Joe Ismay, wrestling coach at Meadowbrook.

Ismay said he's had three blind wrestlers in his more than 20 years of coaching at Palomar College.

One of them was David Chung, who is a year ahead of Harrison and convinced him to join, he said.

His mother described how another boy was talking with him before a wrestling match without realizing Harrison is blind. When his mother took his arm to lead him to the center of the ring, the other boy hesitated, giving Harrison the upper hand.

"I really like knocking guys down, but I don't like being the guy who's knocked down," Harrison said, smiling.

Contact staff writer Quinn Eastman at (760) 740-5412 or qeastman@nctimes.com.

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