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A couple weeks ago, the parent of one of my students informed me that her son has no depth perception. She had taken him to the eye doctor who said he doesn't have the ability to see in three dimensions like you or I can. I was wondering if anybody else has had experience teaching a student like this. I have not had him long (he's a transfer student) so I've been attributing some of his problems to the previous teacher. Any comments or suggestions on teaching him will be appreciated!

Mockingbird

I certainly wouldn't worry about it. I myself suffer from the same condition. It plays little, if any, role in playing the piano.

Oh, and by the way, those of us who lack depth perception make up for it in a number of coping mechanisms, such that the lack of depth perception is nearly meaningless. For example, one of my jobs on summer break from college was being a car valet. I had no problems judging distances.

Very interesting. Now I can't blame any of his struggles on this problem.

Thanks anyway for assuaging my worries. It certainly would be interesting to see through your eyes!

Mockingbird

It's not really as difficult as you think. For those of us who lack binocular convergence into a single image, we learn very early in life to mentally discard the image from one eye or the other. Thus, while we may, in fact be capable of seeing through both eyes, our brains only "pay attention" to one image at a time.

So, if you want to see what my world looks like, cover one of your eyes. Tht's really all there is to it. Everything probably will look totally flat to you. But to me, everything looks just fine, with relief and contour and everything else you might expect. Like I said, we learn to use other visual cues to alert us to depth, without relying on binocular vision.