Deafblind Friendly Room For Erica

Erica was born with congenital rubella syndrome and is now 7 years old. She has profound hearing loss and wears a cochlear implant but is still non-communicative. She also had cataracts removed from both eyes so while she can see with the help of aphakic lenses, she is legally blind and has a fixed focal length of about 12-18 inches. We want to remodel her bedroom to be a sensory experience for her. Our first goal is a custom full-size crib that can accommodate her G-Tube feeding equipment, it would also have a deep trundle where we would have a ball pit (her favorite activity at her therapists’ office). After the bed we want to make a texture ring around her room with 1’ x 1’ tiles of different textures for her to explore with her hands. Finally, she is drawn to anything that lights up and our dream project is a large durable touch screen that would be mounted flush with the wall that she could play with. This campaign will help us start these projects earlier than we would be able to do on our own.