[Blindmath] How many children in America are not taught to read?

[Michael Whapples]

I have to say that a Braille display is far superior to speech access to 
a computer for me. Now may be some of my experience with a Braille 
display being better is to do with the software I use (particularly 
first example I will give). So on to the examples of when a Braille 
display is useful.

A Braille display is really good for viewing tables and being able to 
extract information easily. Now this can depend on the software being 
used, for me on linux using brltty in a text terminal I get all the 
proper layout and with the Braille display navigation keys I can move 
about the display easily and read down columns or across rows without 
any issue (eg. when I am looking for train times in the UK, I use the 
national rail enquiries website in the links browsers and brltty). Now 
compare this with many of the windows screen readers which do their own 
reformatting of the page and so break this nice table layout in Braille. 
Also on this topic of layout, a Braille display is so handy for when I 
am doing computer programming, partly as speech doesn't read the line 
exactly well (due to the need for punctuation, and variable names not 
being single words all the time) and also for tracking the code 
indentation level.

Now to another example of where a Braille display and possibly Braille 
more generally is useful, mathematics (I knew I could bring this thread 
round to being on topic some how). While software like mathplayer is 
good in what it does, I just feel trying to do maths by speech output is 
very hard, mainly due to the lack of direct access to what ever part of 
the equation I want to check. Now the Braille display allows me to get a 
mathematical document and then use some software to translate it to 
Braille and I have instant access (eg. I get a mathml document and so 
use liblouisxml to translate it and then I can read it on a Braille 
display). In this case it is better to have the Braille display as it 
reduces on the bulk of physical Braille documents, no chance of running 
out of Braille paper, etc. How ever I do feel sometimes having the full 
page in front of me is better than just having a single line on a 
Braille display, but I suppose they have different uses.

Are Braille displays perfect, no, it would be nice to have features such 
as full page displays, tactile graphic displays, etc and obviously a 
lower price tag would be very nice.

Michael Whapples
On 07/08/09 03:48, Matthew_2010 wrote:
> Is it possible that 70% of blind people not reading raile is not due 
> to lack of proper instruction or incompetence and has more to do with 
> the need simply not being there? I have a Braille display and have 
> never had even the slightest desire to use it. I really don't think 
> I'm missing out, but maybe some of you can help me out by informing me 
> of what I'm missing out on. My primary reason for not using my Braille 
> display is that taking my fingers off my keyboard to read the display 
> seems like a time consuming additional step to what I can quickly do 
> with the jaws cursor and alike. I didn't lose my vision till I was an 
> adult so maybe these posts are more relevant to the issue of blind 
> children first learning to read.
>
> Matthew
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jason White" <jason at jasonjgw.net>
> To: <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 6:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] How many children in America are not taught 
> to read?
>
>
>>> A braille display will give you instant access to a world of
>>> information through your computer. You don't need to wait for anyone
>>> to transcribe the text for you, it's there for the taking. I can't
>>> think of a bigger incentive to get a child to learn braille!
>>>
>>
>> I agree. If I had to name the single greatest braille-related 
>> invention of the
>> last 50 years, it would have to be the refreshable braille display. I 
>> know
>> high-speed braille embossers are also important and valuable, but I 
>> think
>> refreshable braille is the technology that really stretches the 
>> bounds of what
>> is possible.
>>
>> The Perkins brailler and similar devices are of course fundamental, 
>> dating
>> from earlier in the twentieth century.
>>
>> There is a real need for further advances in the design of braille 
>> display
>> hardware, leading, ideally, to devices that are not only more 
>> affordable, but
>> capable of presenting a full page of text and graphics. This would 
>> make many
>> mathematics applications much easier.
>>> I should point out that some people have an irrational fear of
>>> braille based on the notion that it makes them look more blind in
>>> the eyes of the public. So money isn't the only factor.
>>
>> What makes this worse (and I'll take your word for it - I've never 
>> met any
>> such person) is that it involves internalizing negative stereotypes 
>> about
>> blindness. this list isn't the place to discuss those issues, however.
>>
>>
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>
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