It's worth pointing out, after reading this lot, that people in the UK at least do not like the label 'with disability (ies)' and much prefer the term 'disabled'. This is because they see themselves as disabled by what society does or does not do rather than what they can do themselves. They definitely don't want your pity. You're quite correct not to feel sorry for them.
At the children's centre where I used to work a deaf/blind girl attended some of our sessions with her enabler. She has two CIs (but her hearing is still quite poor) and she can only see items or people if they're very close to her face. She can recognise some voices but relies more on her sense of touch to recognise people, so she would often reach out to touch other children. This spooked a lot of the other children, especially as she couldn't always hear if those children voiced their displeasure. What drove me up the wall is the number of parents who didn't bother explaining to their children why this little girl kept reaching out for them (these parents would just tell their children to move away from her), so staff members or the girl's enabler would tell the children instead. How difficult is it to tell your child, "C wants to touch you because she can't see with her eyes, so she sees with her hands instead"? Of course, a lot of these were the same parents who left bags and other items lying around haphazardly despite continued requests to leave the floor space as clear as possible for the deaf/blind girl's safety.
Sort of like Netflix, but even more like a public library, and yes, it's free. One thing I forgot, though, is that the program is administered through different libraries in different parts of the U.S.; you would want to contact the New York State Talking Book and Braille Library in Albany - names, numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. can be found here:
