By Jennifer Kiilerich
It was a little bit of kismet that led Vanderbilt Peabody College alumna Grace Ambrose-Zaken, Ed.D.'97, to the visual disabilities field. But it was a lot of passion and creativity that drove her to transform that field with a big idea: the Pediatric Belt Cane.
Young children who are born blind or with low vision have long been expected to find their way through the world without much help. The belt cane is a wearable mobility tool that, for the first time, allows toddlers as young as 10 months to navigate their surroundings with ease.
"Grace Ambrose-Zaken has, in my opinion, revolutionized how young blind children are able to move independently from the time they are beginning to walk," said Anne L. Corn, a Peabody College of education and human development professor, emerita, who taught and worked with Ambrose-Zaken.
"Grace Ambrose-Zaken has, in my opinion, revolutionized how young blind children are able to move independently."
Ambrose-Zaken co-founded Safe Toddles, a nonprofit that's provided Pediatric Belt Canes to kids in every U.S. state and 45 countries. The device is recognized by many educators as an educational necessity and by Medicaid as "medically necessary."
A LACK OF TOOLS FOR BLIND CHILDREN
"There's a lot of mythology surrounding the capacity of blind children to overcome blindness with very little in the way of tools," said Ambrose-Zaken, who has worked in the visual disabilities field for more than 25 years.
Although the long white cane is a game-changing mobility aid for blind and visually impaired adults, it comes with a learning curve-and it's unwieldy for those without fully formed motor skills. It has never been a good option for blind infants and young children but there were few, if any, alternatives.
And as blind tots explore their world with no safety net, studies show that they can disproportionately experience motor, speech and cognitive delays. "Simply walking through their house, they never know if the floor will be present, if a toy is in the way or if somebody moved the furniture," said Ambrose-Zaken. "There's never warning about anything that they're about to step on. And that takes a physical and emotional toll. These children become very quiet."
THE LIGHTBULB MOMENT
One November day in 2014, while riding a New York City subway to her job as the orientation and mobility project coordinator at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY), the idea hit her. "Toddlers should wear their white cane," said Ambrose-Zaken. "I just knew it was the answer. I knew that we could figure it out."
Her working garage prototype took a few years to develop, and with it she sought the expertise of a CUNY medical device engineering professor, Marom Bikson. He helped transform it using 3D printers. In 2018, along with family friend Nick Mueller, Ambrose-Zaken co-founded Safe Toddles. "We couldn't give them away at first," she said. But giving them away is exactly what they did, putting the product into the hands of practitioners and families.
"Vanderbilt prepared me with the tools I needed to do the research and publish our findings," Ambrose-Zaken said. "Our research led schools and teachers of the blind to try belt canes with their visually impaired students, and their success has helped others find us."
"Vanderbilt prepared me with the tools I needed to do the research and publish our findings."
Designed to be lightweight and comfortable and to stay correctly positioned in front of wiggly toddlers, the belt cane provides the constant touch feedback needed for balance, protection and information to move. With a tool that helps them feel secure, said Ambrose-Zaken, blind children benefit from fewer injuries, plus improved cognitive development, self confidence and social skills.
EMBRACED BY PRACTITIONERS
Michelle Horseman is a teacher of the visually impaired (TVI) who works as an early interventionist at Lighthouse for the Blind and Low Vision in Winter Haven, Florida. She first tried the belt cane in 2021 with a visually impaired toddler who became overwhelmed every time she stepped outside.
"Three or four months after introducing the belt cane, we were at a park with a splash pad and lots of other kids running around. We had the belt cane on her, and she was fine," said Horseman. "That was when I knew that this was a device that could work wonders for kids."
Since then, Horseman has worked regularly with the belt cane, teaching parents and physical therapists to use it. "When kids get information about what's coming and they feel safer to move, that self-confidence allows them to be able to play with their peers. It allows them to interact. It allows them to walk independently versus having an adult hold their hand," she said. "It opens up the world, not just for the child, but for families to be able to have more normal experiences and not feel like their child is afraid the whole time."
A STRONG PEABODY FOUNDATION
As part of a teacher certification program in Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish early in her career, Ambrose-Zaken was assigned to tutor blind students. She had joined the training program because it was a fast track into the workforce, but instead she discovered that she cared deeply about the blind and visually impaired.
"I grew up hiking and canoeing and doing these amazing adventures with my family, where you had to read maps and be aware of the trees and riverbanks and how to navigate independently. That really was attractive to me, and this is a profession where you are one-on-one, and you help a person navigate their world as independently as possible." Orientation and mobility, or O&M, is the area of visual disabilities dedicated to teaching blind individuals to traverse their environment, and it seemed like a perfect fit for Ambrose-Zaken.
"This is a profession where you are one-on-one, and you help a person navigate their world as independently as possible."
As she read up on visual disabilities, Ambrose-Zaken learned about the work of Anne L. Corn. Corn, professor of special education, ophthalmology and visual sciences, emerita, and a Kennedy Center investigator, led Peabody's visual disabilities program from 1992 to 2008 and became pivotal in Ambrose-Zaken's story.
Ambrose-Zaken went to the University of Texas, Austin, to earn her master's degree while studying with Corn. When Corn moved to Vanderbilt Peabody College, Ambrose-Zaken went too, this time in pursuit of a doctorate from Peabody's long-running Visual Disabilities Program.
"Anne Corn taught me everything I know about low vision and how important tools are to those children," said Ambrose-Zaken. Ambrose-Zaken also studied under Doug Fuchs and the late Lynn Fuchs, renowned researcher professors of special education at Peabody College, and with Butch Hill, who was a professor of special education and an innovator in O&M.
"Learning how to use the tools of research while studying under the Fuchses taught me about data entry and the importance of statistics," she said. "Something you really gain in a program like this is the craft-such as understanding what does a grant look like, and how do you get funding for the projects you want to do."
PIONEERING A BETTER FUTURE
"At first, Grace had a lot of resistance from orientation and mobility specialists who were content with blind children walking only with walls and sitting in one space without exploring their environment," said Corn. "She has been able to overcome the pushback, and she has created an organization that is now being discussed at national and international conferences."
Ambrose-Zaken aims to keep that momentum going by getting her device into the hands of as many kids as possible. Next up for the entrepreneur? "We're working on sports devices that could expand the world of physical activity for blind children in the same way that wheelchairs are used and allowed on the field," said Ambrose-Zaken. "We want to create a device that allows them to play a little differently but still have the same amount of fun with athletics."
The Visual Disabilities Program, part of Peabody's top-ranked Department of Special Education, recently celebrated 100 years of leadership in the visual disabilities field. Its newest offering is a low-residential teacher of the visually impaired (TVI) certification track for working teachers. The program is 75% online with monthly in-person meetings.
