Jeremy

Hello, my name is Jeremy Best. I am living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I have Ushers Syndrome type 1B, which means that I was born profoundly deaf in both ears, and I have Retinitis Pigmentosa. When I was 7 years old, I had a cochlear implant, I learned the sounds background, and I attended to speech therapy by every day to learn the new sounds and attempted improving the words. I hear only the sounds and environmental backgrounds. I have a guide dog name is Ryley! Now I am using Tactile Sign Language and closed vision Pidgin Sign in English PSE.

I began to learn Braille and got a device called a BI32 which stands for Brilliant 32 cell Braille display which you use with an iPhone to communicate with. I attended to Conklin Center for the Blind in Daytona Beach, Florida for one year to learn and improve my Living Independent and search the jobs.  Sheridan Technical Center in Hollywood, Florida and training for 2 years in 2003-2005 as culinary arts and I have 4 certifies. In 2014 to 2015, I was becoming a student at Helen Keller National Center in Long Island, New York. I was staying there for 9 months training to get more improve for my life, Living Independent, search the job and getting an opportunity of training with several careers for me and found to work as a bakery department in the grocery store, and other different cultures they educate me to understanding the real culture and accommodations for both my vision and hearing loss.

I had been selected by Helen Keller National Center to be a male mentor for the Youth Adults Summer Program YASP in summer 2015. It was my first time to be a mentor. In 2016, I will be becoming a leader mentor for the YASP again.

My hobbies I mostly enjoying is hang out with my friends, social with many Deaf Blind, playing many different games I am very good and champion with SkipBo and Phase 10 games.

I am looking forward to be first time mentor at the Transition Institute in Georgia this summer. It is so pleasure to meeting many of you and learning about the new experiences being work with the mentors and people of Transition Institute . I am honoring to be part of this event.

Best Regards!

Jeremy Best