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

Sarah Baughn sarahb006 at comcast.net
Tue Nov 30 15:56:55 UTC 2010


And I am finding out that since I have had my Stream, I order Braille books 
from the library less and less, and I love to read Braille, it's just that I 
have admittedly gotten lazy.
Sarah
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Judy Jones" <jtj1 at cableone.net>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 11:59 AM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FYI Are Braille's days as the great equalizer over?


> Sarah, you're so right.
>
> Once when my daughter was in middle school, when I went to check a paper 
> she was handing in before printing, I discovered she had written it in 
> textese. Like "Im, Ur," etc.  I said that style is limited exclusively to 
> texting on phones, but I'm seeing it on FB and elsewhere now, too.  The 
> basic problem across the board, blind, sighted, society in general is the 
> lowering of standards and expectations in all venues of life.
>
> Judy
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: " Sarah Baughn" <sarahb006 at comcast.net>
> To: "qubit" <lauraeaves at yahoo.com>; "NFB Talk Mailing List" 
> <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 9:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FYI Are Braille's days as the great equalizer 
> over?
>
>
>> 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.
>>>
>>> * 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
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>>> 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/#DecreaseTextSize> -
>>> <http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/#IncreaseTextSize> + Change 
>>> text
>>> size
>>>
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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"
>>>
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>>>
>>> (415) 827-4084
>>>
>>> <mailto:info at michaelhingson.com> info at michaelhingson.com
>>>
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>>> availability please visit  <http://www.michaelhingson.com>
>>> www.michaelhingson.com
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> for info on the new KNFB Reader Mobile, visit:
>>>
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>>>
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