[BlindMath] Typing Math and Science Quickly and Understandably

[Sean Tikkun]

Just want to poke in here, and definitely not to start a fire storm. I'm wondering if you can qualify your cognitive load statement in two ways. One way, is where the statement that braille reduces cognitive load comes from. I'd love to have a reference like that on hand if its been published somewhere. The second is that a reduction in cognitive load needs to be compared to something. Is the intent to compare to auditory listening? 

Thank You,
Sean Tikkun
Apple Distinguished Educator
class of 2007

On May 02, 2018, at 11:18 AM, Susan Jolly via BlindMath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

Hi Bhavya,

If I'm understanding your email you don't use braille. Braille is something 
that would be worth your while to learn since it reduces the cognitive load.

The most compact linear math system is Nemeth braille math which is more 
complete than ASCII math. You can use it for your own notes even if you 
don't read and write braille or use a braille keyboard! What you would do 
is to enter a well-known braille transliteration from a standard keyboard 
using 63 of the ASCII keyboard characters. I would suggest North American 
ASCII braille since it is aligned with Nemeth math as much as possible.

There is a standard spoken form of Nemeth math called MathSpeak. This system 
has been tested against other versions of spoken math and found to be 
superior. Dr. Nemeth said it only took him about 15 minutes to train 
sighted people who didn't even know math to read printed math aloud to him 
using MathSpeak and he could type the corresponding braille math about as 
fast as they could speak. Here's an example of the fraction one half in 
MathSpeak. startfrac one over two endfrac. Here's how you would type it. 
I'll put spaces between the names of the characters and then the characters 
themselves without space. questionmark one over two hashmark ?1/2#

I know that sounds funny at first. But the print question mark character 
and the corresponding braille cell have similar shapes; both look like an 
upside down letter ell. So if you were reading braille with your fingers you 
would feel that special shape as a reminder that that the next expression is 
a fraction. The braille cell represented by the print hashmark looks like a 
backwards ell so that makes sense as reminder that the fraction has ended.

This is a recent page is about MathSpeak. You may have to select the plus 
sign at the upper right to get the entire article with its additional links 
to more information about MathSpeak to display properly.
https://www.washington.edu/doit/what-mathspeak

You also asked about chemistry. You might want to consider one of the 
standard methods which has the advantage of software support to display it 
in a standard manner for sighted people. Here's an introductory article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_molecular-input_line-entry_system

Best wishes,
Susan Jolly 


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