[nfb-talk] FYI Are Braille's days as the great equalizer over?

Michael Hingson info at michaelhingson.com
Fri Nov 26 23:28:27 UTC 2010


I respectfully disagree a bit.  I find that blind youth and "visually
impaired" youth do find that they are at an advantage if they learn Braille.
The proof is in part found in all those who have gone before who are young
enough to have had access to at least some technology and who did not learn
Braille for a variety of reasons including educators who prevented them from
having the opportunity.  Also, I find  many youth today who haven't learned
Braille who cannot appreciate formatting, who do not spell well, and who
cannot write well formed sentences, something which the workplace zrequires
more and more of employees.

The ansilary benefits of Braille are the same as those benefits sighted
people gain from learning print.  reading silently to yourself, for example,
is different even for a blind person than from one reading via audio means.
No matter what silent personal non verbal reading permits different thought
processes and contemplations than reading via someone's or something's
voice.  Without Braille we lose that opportunity.

Finally, , remember that although Harry Potter may take up several volumes
in Braille it takes up only a few hundred KB in a computer file.  Reading
Braille from paper or a refreshable display offers  all the benefits of
Braille and modern technology gives us a way to keep down the space problem.

"Modern Society and its educators" forget these concepts.  Braille must be
encouraged and all blind persons, not just totally blind people, should
learn it to be on an equal reading footing with our sighted counterparts.


Best,


Michael Hingson


Mike Hingson

The Michael Hingson Group, INC.
 “Speaking with Vision”
Michael Hingson, President
(415) 827-4084
info at michaelhingson.com
To learn more about my upcoming book, speaking topics and speaking
availability please visit www.michaelhingson.com
Thunder Dog is now available for early ordering on Amazon!!!
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1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289090352&sr=1-3


for info on the new KNFB Reader Mobile, visit:
http://knfbreader.michaelhingson.com


-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of John Heim
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 3:01 PM
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FYI Are Braille's days as the great equalizer over?

Well, I basically agree with you but I don't think we should totally  
dismiss the other point of view. I think the need to learn braille is  
becoming a tougher and tougher sell as young blind people get more and  
more into technology.

Learning braille is really hard and for the few times you need it, its  
hard to say it's worth the effort. But in my opinion, it's like not  
having enough lifeboats on the titanic. Its like not getting your flu  
shot. Its like not buying insurance. Yeah, maybe you'll never need it.  
but if you do, you are going to be darn glad you took the time to  
learn it.

this is probably the most valuable thing about the NFB philosophy.  
don't try to just slide by. Attack being blind
Go after it. Learn how to use a computer, learn how to cross a street,  
and by all means, learn braille.

This is how I approach my young friends who have lost their sight. get  
out there and get it done. Approach it like any other problem. Its  
going to take hard work. But to be the best blind guy you can be, you  
need braille.


On Nov 26, 2010, at 2:48 PM, Ray Foret Jr wrote:

> Seems to me we've all heard this same sorry song and dance before.   
> Are the days of Print through as the great equalizer?  No?  If not,  
> why not?  I suspect I can guess how most fluent Braille readers will  
> come down on this one.  I don't read Braille as fluently as I really  
> should, but, seems to me that Braille is necessary to daily life.   
> this tired old song and dance of "Braile is being replaced by  
> technology" is the most stupid thing I think I've ever come across.
>
>
> Sincerely,
> The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!!
>
> Now A Very Proud and very happy Mac user!!!
>
> Skype Name:
> barefootedray
>
> On Nov 26, 2010, at 2:36 PM, Michael Hingson wrote:
>
>>
>> Are Braille's days as the great equalizer over?
>>
>>
>> Keith Gillard taps away on his computer's Microsoft Egronomic  
>> keyboard at
>> his home in Edmonton, Aug. 4, 2010. "Braille is not necessary to  
>> have a full
>> and complete life as a blind Canadian," he says.
>>
>> Walter Tychnowicz for National Post
>>
>> Keith Gillard taps away on his computer's Microsoft Egronomic  
>> keyboard at
>> his home in Edmonton, Aug. 4, 2010. "Braille is not necessary to  
>> have a full
>> and complete life as a blind Canadian," he says.
>>
>> *	Comments <http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/#Comments>
>> *	Twitter
>>
<http://twitter.com/home?status=RT+@nationalpost%3a+Are+Braille%27s+days+as+
>>
the+great+equalizer+over%3f+http%3a//www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/Braill
>> e%2bdays%2bgreat%2bequalizer%2bover/3369651/story.html>
>> *	LinkedIn
>>
<http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=http%3a//www.nationalpos
>> t.com/news/canada/Braille%2bdays%2bgreat%2bequalizer%2bover/3369651/ 
>> story.ht
>> ml&title=National+Post%3a+Are+Braille%27s+days+as+the+great 
>> +equalizer+over%3
>> f>
>> *	Digg
>>
<http://digg.com/submit?url=http%3a//www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/Braill
>> e%2bdays%2bgreat%2bequalizer%2bover/3369651/ 
>> story.html&title=National+Post%3
>> a+Are+Braille%27s+days+as+the+great+equalizer+over%3f>
>> *	Buzz
>>
<http://www.google.com/buzz/post?url=http%3a//www.nationalpost.com/news/cana
>> da/Braille%2bdays%2bgreat%2bequalizer%2bover/3369651/ 
>> story.html&message=Nati
>> onal+Post%3a+Are+Braille%27s+days+as+the+great+equalizer+over 
>> %3f&image-url=h
>> ttp%3a//www.nationalpost.com/3369607.bin%3fsize%3d620x465>
>> *	Email
>>
<http://www.nationalpost.com/ajax/email/story.xml?url=http%3a//www.nationalp
>> ost.com/news/canada/Braille%2bdays%2bgreat%2bequalizer%2bover/ 
>> 3369651/story.
>> html&id=3369651&title=National+Post+Story%3a++Are+Braille%27s+days 
>> +as+the+gr
>> eat+equalizer+over%3f>
>> *	
>>
>> Kenyon Wallace, National Post . Friday, Aug. 6, 2010
>>
>> The publication in 1829 of a small booklet explaining how a series  
>> of raised
>> dots arranged in a line could teach the world's blind to read is  
>> one of
>> modern history's great, if often overlooked, turning points.
>>
>> Once hailed as the great intellectual equalizer, Louis Braille's  
>> development
>> of a new alphabet that could be read with the fingers is now at  
>> risk of
>> being consigned to history, overtaken by the rapid pace of changing
>> technology.
>>
>> Only 10% of blind school-aged children are taught Braille today;  
>> compared to
>> about 50% in the 1960s, according to the U.S. National Federation  
>> of the
>> Blind. The statistic is roughly the same for Canada.
>>
>> The prospect of Braille becoming obsolete has sparked a polarizing  
>> debate
>> between advocates, educators and individuals over the causes of the  
>> code's
>> decline and what to do about it.
>>
>> Advocates blame funding shortages, not enough qualified teachers, and
>> decisions by administrators to deny Braille instruction to children  
>> with low
>> vision because of an emphasis on encouraging these students to read  
>> print.
>> Educators say this assessment couldn't be further from the truth  
>> and argue
>> that today's diagnostic tools have honed the art of identifying  
>> those who
>> truly require Braille instruction and those who don't.
>>
>> Others still - including many blind people - say advances in  
>> assistive
>> technology, such as audiobooks, voice recognition software and  
>> computer
>> screen-readers, have rendered Braille unnecessary in daily life.  
>> They say
>> its cumbersome nature - a single Harry Potter book printed on  
>> Braille paper
>> will fill a moving box - makes it impractical and unaffordable.
>>
>> "Braille is not necessary to have a full and complete life as a blind
>> Canadian," said Edmonton resident Keith Gillard, who was born with  
>> retinitis
>> pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition that rendered him legally,  
>> but not
>> completely, blind at birth. As a child, he was encouraged to use  
>> what vision
>> he had to learn print, but not Braille. "They taught me how to  
>> touch type
>> rather than learn Braille."
>>
>> By his mid-20s, the blurry fog obscuring his peripheral vision  
>> began to
>> creep toward the centre of his eyes as his condition worsened. Mr.  
>> Gillard
>> gauged the severity of his increasing blindness by his ability to  
>> see the
>> lines on the ice at his local hockey rink each winter while playing  
>> on a
>> blind hockey team.
>>
>> Now 49 and completely blind, he says he has contemplated learning  
>> Braille,
>> but probably never will given the plethora of technological aids he  
>> uses at
>> work as a federal civil servant and at home.
>>
>> "Adaptive technology has opened up the world of education and  
>> employment for
>> blind Canadians. Braille hasn't done that," he said.
>>
>> "I recognize the benefits. Would I be better off as a blind  
>> Canadian if I
>> was a proficient Braille reader? I think I would be. Is it  
>> necessary for me
>> to be successful? No."
>>
>> Up until nine years ago, Sarah Empey, 35, had full eyesight. When  
>> she was
>> 26, the Type 1 diabetic suffered complications due to high blood  
>> pressure
>> and started to go blind. Despite several operations, she now has  
>> only 15%
>> vision in her right eye.
>>
>> She intends to learn Braille one day, but hasn't found the need for  
>> it yet,
>> and has learned only numbers.
>>
>> "It's not something I would use at this point," says Ms. Empey, a  
>> Calgary
>> resident and short film director.
>>
>> She uses a program on her computer called ZoomText, which magnifies  
>> text and
>> uses an audio device called a VictorReader to listen to books.
>>
>> "Some people are fine with technology doing everything for them. I  
>> do see
>> Braille as slightly dying off, but for me, Braille still means more
>> independence [in the future]."
>>
>> Twenty years ago, the predominant philosophy governing education of  
>> the
>> blind was to maximize the efficiency of whatever vision students  
>> had in a
>> regular classroom with their sighted peers. This required partially  
>> blind
>> children to use a myriad of tools such as monocular telescopes to  
>> see the
>> blackboard, magnifying glasses, bold markers and large-print books.  
>> These
>> tools evolved through the 1980s to include small cameras students  
>> could roll
>> over text that would be blown up on a closed circuit television.
>>
>> "Braille was never given to them as an option because if you had  
>> vision, you
>> were supposed to use vision," said Dr. Carol Farrenkopf,  
>> coordinator of the
>> Toronto District School Board's Vision Program.
>>
>> It wasn't until the mid-1990s that teachers began using a tool  
>> called a
>> "learning media assessment," using observations and timed-readings to
>> determine if Braille should be introduced.
>>
>> Another factor driving down the rate of Braille use is the fact  
>> that those
>> who go blind later in life due to medical conditions, such as  
>> diabetes and
>> macular degeneration, already have literacy skills and are  
>> therefore less
>> likely to be inclined to learn a new writing system.
>>
>> "A 60-year-old woman working who already knows how to read and  
>> write and
>> then loses her vision, why does she need to learn Braille when she  
>> can keep
>> going with technology?" said Ms. Farrenkopf.
>>
>> She stresses that not all blind children need to be taught Braille.
>>
>> "Legal blindness is not the same thing as being totally blind,"  
>> said Ms.
>> Farrenkopf, noting that 20/200 vision - legal blindness - is still
>> functional vision. (Someone with 20/200 can see a letter at 20 feet  
>> while a
>> person with normal vision can see the same letter from 200 feet.)
>>
>> "Kids with 20/200 vision don't need to be reading Braille."
>>
>> That opinion is not shared by all Braille advocates, who wonder at  
>> the logic
>> of not teaching the system to children when many eye conditions are
>> degenerative.
>>
>> "They're in the school system where people are being encouraged to  
>> use the
>> technology and their remaining vision at the expense of learning  
>> Braille
>> that will prepare them for vision loss as they get older," said CNIB
>> spokeswoman Ellie Shuster.
>>
>> Advocates also say the integration of blind children within the  
>> regular
>> school system means less one-on-one time between teachers and  
>> students and
>> therefore less consistent Braille instruction. The result, they  
>> say, is that
>> many students end up being functionally illiterate.
>>
>> "School districts across the country, in general, don't adequately  
>> support
>> Braille instruction," said Betty Nobel, president of the Canadian  
>> Braille
>> Authority. "In the primary grades, kids should have daily Braille
>> instruction, but they're not getting that."
>>
>> Forty years ago, Canada was home to several residential schools for  
>> the
>> blind, where all students were expected to learn Braille. There is  
>> only one
>> such school remaining today: W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind  
>> and
>> Deafblind in Brantford, Ont.
>>
>> The Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority, which provides
>> educational services to students from birth to 21 years of age with  
>> sensory
>> impairments, has also established several successful short-term,  
>> intensive
>> Braille courses that can be taken during the regular school year.
>>
>> But it's not enough, says Ms. Nobel, who is also department head of  
>> the
>> Program for the Visually Impaired at Vancouver Community College  
>> and a CNIB
>> library board member. She says teachers in the regular school  
>> system may not
>> have blind children in their classes every year, meaning they lack  
>> the
>> opportunity to stay proficient in Braille.
>>
>> "If this means lowering the workloads for teachers that have blind  
>> students,
>> that's what we need," she said.
>>
>> The implications for an illiterate blind population are profound.
>>
>> A study by Dr. Ruby Ryles, a blindness researcher at Louisiana Tech
>> University, found that visually impaired people who learned Braille  
>> at a
>> young age were more likely to be employed, financially independent  
>> and
>> better educated than those who relied primarily on print -- this in  
>> a world
>> where blind adults already face an unemployment rate of over 70%.
>>
>> Diana Brent, a teacher of visually impaired students, and her  
>> husband, Doug
>> Brent, a University of Calgary communications professor, are the  
>> authors of
>> one of the only studies comparing the writings of blind people who  
>> learned
>> Braille at a young age and those who didn't. Non-Braille users were  
>> asked to
>> type stories on a keyboard using audio software.
>>
>> Their findings were alarming. The Brents described the prose of the
>> non-Braille group as "jumbled and confused."
>>
>> "It's as if all of their ideas are crammed into a container,  
>> shaken, and
>> thrown randomly onto a sheet of paper like dice onto a table," the  
>> authors
>> concluded. "The process of making connections, linking one idea to  
>> another
>> is tenuous at best."
>>
>> While preliminary, the results suggest that blind children relying  
>> solely on
>> an oral education have virtually no means of literacy in the sense  
>> that
>> society has come to understand it.
>>
>> "It's still well worth teaching children Braille, even if they  
>> choose later
>> to drift away from it," said Mr. Brent. "To not have access to a  
>> way of
>> organizing thought that depends on a system of written record, to  
>> not be
>> formed by that arguably makes people think differently and puts  
>> them at a
>> significant disadvantage."
>>
>> kewallace at nationalpost.com
>>
>> - - -
>>
>> Who was Louis Braille?
>>
>> Louis Braille was born fully sighted on Jan. 4, 1809 in a small  
>> town near
>> Paris, France.
>>
>> He lost his sight as a small boy after accidentally stabbing  
>> himself in the
>> eye with a stitching awl his his father's shoemaking workshop. An  
>> infection
>> in one eye spread to the other, rendering him completely blind.
>>
>> A creative and intelligent boy, Braille earned a scholarship to the  
>> Royal
>> Institution for Blind Youth in Paris when he was 10.
>>
>> While there, he learned to read using a system of raised letters by  
>> pressing
>> shaped copper wire onto paper. But this cumbersome system made it  
>> impossible
>> for blind people to write by themselves.
>>
>> In 1821, French army captain Charles Barbier de la Serre visited  
>> the school
>> to share his invention, which he called "Night Writing." The  
>> invention was a
>> series of 12 raised dots combined to form words that soldiers could  
>> use to
>> communicate in the night without talking.
>>
>> The code proved too difficult to understand, so Braille modified  
>> the system
>> to a series of six raised dots, with characters representing each  
>> letter of
>> the alphabet. In 1829 he published his system in the booklet, "The  
>> Method of
>> Writing Words, Music and Plain Song by Means of Dots, for Use by  
>> the Blind
>> and Arranged by Them."
>>
>> This new system of reading and writing - Braille - did not catch on
>> immediately. Braille, who eventually became a teacher at the  
>> Institute, died
>> of tuberculosis on Jan. 6, 1852, before even his own school adopted  
>> his
>> code.
>>
>> The French government officially recognized the Braille system two  
>> years
>> later, and it eventually became the world standard for written  
>> communication
>> for the blind.
>>
>> In 1952, Braille's body was disinterred and reburied in the  
>> Pantheon in
>> Paris to lie with the remains of other distinguished French citizens.
>>
>> Kenyon Wallace, National Post
>>
>> - - -
>>
>> Blindness By The Numbers
>>
>> 10 Percentage of legally blind North Americans who can read Braille
>>
>> 836,000 Number of Canadians living with significant vision loss  
>> that cannot
>> be corrected with ordinary lenses
>>
>> 70 Percentage of blind North Americans who are unemployed
>>
>> 1,000,000 number of Canadians with some form of macular  
>> degeneration, the
>> leading cause of vision loss in North Americans over the age of 50
>>
>> 90 Percentage of blind children in the United States not learning  
>> Braille
>> today
>>
>> 50 Percentage of blind American high school students who drop out
>>
>> 75,000 Number of people who lose all or part of their vision every  
>> year
>>
>> Source: NFB and CNIB
>>
>>
>> Tools
>>
>>
>> .          <http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/ 
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>>
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>>
>> More On This Story
>>
>>
>> .
>>
<http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/Blind+person+sense+smell+better+dif
>> ferent+study/2958847/story.html> Blind person's sense of smell not  
>> better,
>> but different: study
>>
>>
>> .
>>
<http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/Artist+creates+book+nudes+blind/290
>> 3068/story.html> Artist creates book of nudes for the blind
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The Michael Hingson Group, INC.
>>
>> "Speaking with Vision"
>>
>> Michael Hingson, President
>>
>> (415) 827-4084
>>
>> <mailto:info at michaelhingson.com> info at michaelhingson.com
>>
>> To learn more about my upcoming book, speaking topics and speaking
>> availability please visit  <http://www.michaelhingson.com>
>> www.michaelhingson.com
>>
>> Thunder Dog is now available for early ordering on Amazon!!!
>>
<http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Dog-Blind-Triumph-Ground/dp/140020304X/ref=sr
>> _1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289090352&sr=1-3>
>>
http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Dog-Blind-Triumph-Ground/dp/140020304X/ref=sr_
>> 1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289090352&sr=1-3
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> for info on the new KNFB Reader Mobile, visit:
>>
>> <http://knfbreader.michaelhingson.com>
http://knfbreader.michaelhingson.com
>>
>>
>>
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