Caden Johnson, a grade six student at Westpark Middle School, was recognized by Red Deer Public Schools on Wednesday for placing first at the Alberta Regional Braille Challenge in Calgary in March for the third consecutive year.

By Sheldon Spackman

Braille Challenge

Local student wins Alberta Regional Braille Challenge for third consecutive year

May 10, 2019 | 10:54 AM

A local middle school student has been recognized by Red Deer Public Schools for his third straight win at the Alberta Regional Braille Challenge in Calgary in March.

Caden Johnson, a grade six student at Westpark Middle School, participated in reading comprehension, reading charts and graphs, proofreading, and a speed and accuracy test during the challenge. The competition is a national reading and writing contest that helps promote the importance of Braille literacy skills amongst students with vision loss.

Caden’s mother Tera says her son has competed in the Alberta Regional Braille Challenge six times now and first qualified for the National Braille Challenge in Los Angeles in 2017.

“Out of 1,400 kids that compete, he had placed in the top 50 and more specifically in the top 10 in his category,” says Johnson. “Fast-forward two years and we’re in the same position again. He won in Alberta in March, placed first out of about 22 kids that competed and we just found out last week that he did place in the top 50 overall in North America and then again more specifically in the top 10 in his category.”

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As a result, Johnson says the family will be going to Los Angeles June 21-22 for Caden to compete once again at the National Braille Challenge.

“He’s very excited because he has experienced it once and we had no idea what we were walking into,” says Johnson. “But now that we know, it’s one of the most amazing things that we ever thought would happen for him. They have 50 students competing from all over North America, so you’re meeting kids from all over the States and Canada.”

Johnson says each student is assigned their own personal volunteer to guide them to each of their four different challenge sessions amongst all the festivities.

“They have a University of Southern California (USC) marching band that plays for them, they have a red carpet event when they begin and opening ceremonies,” she explains. “Then there’s the wrap-up awards ceremony which is a very fancy, elegant banquet evening. It’s quite something.”

Despite her son’s outstanding achievements and obvious strength in reading braille, Johnson says Caden has been raised to be like every other boy.

“He’s just as stubborn as the rest of them and he’s just as daring as the rest of them,” adds Johnson. “I think it helps that he had two older brothers and whatever they were doing, he wanted to do. As a parent, you can’t tell him ‘no’ because you have a disability.”

Johnson says despite the adversity Caden has faced in his life, he has overcome it and would tell you himself he doesn’t care that he has no vision.

“It hasn’t stopped him from doing anything that he wants to do and we have not been that barrier for him either,” says Johnson. “So when he said he wants to go downhill skiing, we went and had a downhill ski. When he said he wanted to swim in the lake and do knee-boarding and water skiing, we taught him how to do that and just found a way to make it work.”

Johnson admits her son is a remarkable young man.

“One of Caden’s favourite things to do, believe it or not, is public speaking,” she tells. “He likes to speak at events. He has spoken at Remembrance Day events, he’s been a leader and a guide, he has nominated his braille transcriber for a nationally-recognized distinguished teacher award at the Canadian Vision Teacher’s Conference last year.

This Friday, Caden will be speaking in front of 500+ guests at the Evening of Decadent Dessert event in support of Aspire Special Needs Resource Centre, where he attended a two-year pre-school program.