[blindkid] Ipad only

Richard Holloway rholloway at gopbc.org
Wed Nov 12 16:23:11 UTC 2014


When you say with a braille display, do you mean literally only a display, or do you mean a braille keyboard and display combined?

If she is accustomed to typing in braille, I cannot see taking that away, so she needs to have that option somewhere besides just a Perkins. There are so many other variables, it is hard to have a well considered opinion, but I would want a compelling reason, which had better not be cost, on the part of the LEA. Neither cost, nor their convenience. Have you asked your daughter what she would like?

At this point, out daughter (6th grade, no light perception) continues to use her Braillenote (similar to a braille sense) as well as a ChromeBook. She uses iDevices with either a Focus 40 keyboard & display, or sometimes paired with the keyboard on her BrailleNote, as well as voice over.  With the ChromeBook, she uses the built-in ChromeVox and QWERTY keyboard. She also uses a PC and JAWS some, but the ChromeBook & ChromeVox seem to be replacing the PC/JAWS somewhat lately for her.

If your daughter is comfortable with QWERTY, there’s nothing wrong with that— many notetakers also use qwerty for input, but it needs to be what she is comfortable with, especially now that she has a system in place, and I suggest she needs to have tactile input capability, and well as the opportunity to read her work with braille, not just hear things read aloud by voice synthesis, or speaking to Siri to enter text. That is not the same learning process her sighted peers have available, and it may not work well for her. She needs to be able to read for herself, and type for herself, 

Speed also matters. If the new device slows her down, I would want a very slow transition with full access to what she likes and knows best as she changes over— that if you agree a transition should be made at all. It is great to get her on whatever the rest of the kids are using if it can be made to work as well for your daughter, but it doesn’t matter how well she fits in by using the technology for the other kids (assuming they are using iDevices) unless she can keep up with a reasonable rate while using these devices.

	-RH 

On Nov 12, 2014, at 10:51 AM, Amber Hall via blindkid <blindkid at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hello, it's been a while since I've been on here. But I have a question for parents of kiddos who are using iPads with braille display at school. My daughter has a braille sense. she's had it for probably four years now. She does very good on it, but the school is wanting her to go to iPad only with a braille display. I'm kind of hesitant because I know I've heard negative things on here about doing that. 
> Any suggestions on what I can say to help my case when I present it to the school? 
> My daughter loves her braillesense. She's hesitant to go to the iPad because a lot of times it doesn't work for think she needs it too. And she is slow with it because she doesn't have a lot of experience with it.
> But they still want her to transition to only ipad anyway.
> Thanks for your help!
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
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