[blindkid] Research on Early Braille Use

[Carrie Gilmer]

FYI: For new People who have not seen it,

Research Study: Early Braille Education Vital

by Ruby Ryles, Ph.D.

An exhaustive study has cast aside some erroneous stereotypes while
underscoring the importance of Braille education at an early age. The study
has revealed that literacy rates of blind high school students who began
their Braille education at an early age are consistent with those of their
sighted peers. The study further disclosed that legally blind children who
received infrequent or no Braille training, or who began their Braille
education later in life, exhibit noticeably lower literacy rates. 

The study was conducted by Ruby Ryles, Ph.D., founding coordinator of the
master's program in Orientation and Mobility at Louisiana Tech
University/Louisiana Center for the Blind. Ryles performed the study for her
University of Washington doctoral dissertation in special education, titled
"Relationship of Reading Medium to Literacy Skills of High School Students
Who Are Visually Impaired." Results from that and a preliminary study
suggest that partially sighted children may be at greater risk of literacy
deficiencies than children who are totally blind. The study was intended to
establish correlations between present literacy rates and the early reading
education of high school students from 45 cities, towns, and rural
communities in 11 eastern and southern states. Of 60 students in the study,
45 were legally blind from birth, had no other disabilities, spoke English
as a first language, were of average intelligence, and attended public
rather than residential schools. 

The study also included a comparative group of 15 sighted students attending
the same schools as the legally blind subjects. The 45 legally blind
students were divided into three groups of 15 students each, corresponding
with the initiation and consistency of their Braille instruction: Early
Braille-students who received Braille instruction four to five days per week
while in the first, second, and third grades. Infrequent Braille-students
who received Braille instruction fewer than four days per week during the
first three grades; Non-Braille-legally blind students who received no
instruction in reading Braille, instead using print material and optical
aids. 

Ryles administered comprehension, vocabulary, and other subtests of the
Stanford Achievement Test and the Woodcock Johnson R (revised) assessment
tests. In comprehension tests, there was no significant difference between
the mean scores of the sighted students and the group of blind students who
received early frequent instruction in Braille. Nor was there a significant
difference between the mean scores of the infrequent Braille group and the
non-Braille group on the two comprehension tests. However, the students who
received instruction in Braille fewer than four days a week during the first
three grades of school (infrequent Braille group) and the non-Braille group
posted mean scores on both tests significantly lower than those of the
sighted and early Braille groups. 

In vocabulary, early Braille readers outperformed sighted students by a 5
percent margin on the Stanford test and nearly matched their sighted
classmates on the Woodcock Johnson R test. The infrequent Braille learners,
producing a mean score of 45 percent, registered significantly below the
early Braille and sighted groups on the Stanford test. Legally blind
students who received no Braille instruction posted a mean score 6
percentage points lower than the infrequent Braille group on the same test.
The infrequent and non-Braille groups also scored significantly lower than
the early Braille and sighted groups on the Woodcock Johnson R vocabulary
test. 

Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization scores shattered stereotypes. In
the capitalization and punctuation portion of the Woodcock Johnson R test,
early Braille readers produced a mean score that was 7 percentage points
higher than their sighted peers, 25 percentage points higher than the
infrequent Braille group, and 42 percentage points higher than their legally
blind peers in the non-Braille group. In the spelling portion of the
Woodcock Johnson R test, early Braille learners averaged 1 percent point
higher than fully sighted readers, 32 percentage points higher than
infrequent Braille learning, and 38 percentage points higher than the
non-Braille group. 

Before beginning work on the project, Ryles conducted a preliminary study in
the state of Washington evaluating the correlation between adult literacy
skills and employment. There, she studied 74 adults who were born legally
blind and were patrons of the Library for the Blind. Ryles discovered that
44 percent of the study participants who had learned to read in Braille were
unemployed, while those who had learned to read using print had a 77 percent
unemployment rate. Those results prompted her to conduct an in-depth study
exploring the childhood reading education of legally blind high school kids.


The two studies led Ryles to an inescapable conclusion: "Low-vision kids
need to be taught Braille," she asserts. "Early Braille education is crucial
to literacy, and literacy is crucial to employment." 

The article above first appeared in the Spring, 1998, edition of HumanWare's
publication, Star Student. It was later reprinted in Future Reflections.

 

 

 

 

Carrie Gilmer, President

National Organization of Parents of Blind Children

A Division of the National Federation of the Blind

NFB National Center: 410-659-9314

Home Phone: 763-784-8590

carrie.gilmer at gmail.com

www.nfb.org/nopbc