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

[Sarah Baughn]

Well, I think it is imperative to learn Braille.  That's the problem with 
today's society, there is so much technology out there, and it's not only a 
problem among the blind, but the sighted, with texting and such, don't know 
how to spell because everything is so abbreviated these days.
Sarah
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "qubit" <lauraeaves at yahoo.com>
To: <info at michaelhingson.com>; "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 3:00 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FYI Are Braille's days as the great equalizer over?


> They neglect several important points: If a child is or will become
> deafblind, braille is essential for communication.  Also, math and science
> are much more difficult to grasp without some kind of tactile
> representation.  Finally, braille is useful for a lot more than just 
> reading
> literature.  It is good for labeling things around the house, or a file. 
> It
> is useful for notes when public speaking.  Having a notetaker with a
> refreshable display also allows a student to take notes quietly in a 
> class.
> Finally, I was one of those partially sighted kids who learned braille in
> school but wasn't required to use it because I was able to see with
> magnification.  Now as an adult over -- well, over a certain age 
> *smile* --
> I find it much harder to improve my braille reading speed.  I thankfully
> remember the codes, but memorization is only part of learning braille. 
> There
> is the developed skill of recognizing symbols and words quickly with your
> fingers.  I now wish I had spent more time with braille when I was a 
> child.
> As far as I am concerned, the article is incomplete.  Someone should write
> to the editor.
> --le
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Hingson" <info at michaelhingson.com>
> To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 2:36 PM
> Subject: [nfb-talk] FYI Are Braille's days as the great equalizer over?
>
>
>
> 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.
>
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>
> 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
>
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