[Nfbofnc] Articled on Braille from April 17 Charlotte Observer

[Gary H. Ray]

The Charlotte Chapter will be doing a Braille Coin launch on Thursday, April
23, 2009, at a local library.

Article from Charlotte Observer on April 17:

Few blind people use Braille, fewer visually impaired kids learning it  
By Bonnie Miller Rubin 
Chicago Tribune 
Posted: Friday, Apr. 17, 2009    

CHICAGO -        Justin Egle was born at 23 weeks, before his retinas had a
chance to fully develop, leaving him totally blind. Now 13, the Glenview,
Ill., boy has fallen behind academically - and his mother believes it's
because he hasn't received adequate Braille training. His school offers him
40 minutes of Braille instruction four days a week. They have mislabeled him
as retarded, but the problem isn't that he can't learn … it's that he
never got the skills needed to be a good reader. I constantly ran into
roadblocks," said Tina Egle, who now takes her son to a private Braille
tutor. By all accounts, Justin Egle's experience is not unusual. Fewer than
10 percent of the 1.3 million legally blind Americans read Braille, the
system of raised dots that has represented the alphabet to the visually
impaired for almost two centuries. Moreover, just 10 percent of children are
learning the system compared to more than 50 percent during its heyday in
the 1950s, according to a recent report by the National Federation for the
Blind. Either people aren't learning it, they don't have access to it, or
they just don't have enough faith in it," said Chris Danielsen,
representative for the Baltimore-based group. The report ticks off a
multitude of reasons why Braille is in decline, from a shortage of qualified
teachers to mainstreaming in money-strapped schools to parents who
discourage kids from learning it in favor of voice-recognition software,
audio-texts and other technology. One point is clear: Without Braille
literacy, the chances of pursuing higher education and better-paying jobs
are greatly reduced, advocates say. Even before the recession, the
unemployment rate among blind adults hovered around 70 percent. I challenge
anyone to learn geometry from an audio text," said Barbara Perkis, director
of the Illinois Instructional Materials Center at the Chicago Lighthouse on
the city's near West Side. The 125,000-volume collection furnishes textbooks
for any visually impaired student in the state and has served as a national
model since its inception in 1965. While Perkis doesn't see Braille
vanishing any time soon, she laments the gaps in instruction for many of the
state's 3,600 visually-impaired students. While there are some "amazingly
dedicated" teachers, they frequently must shuttle long distances between
school districts and are only available at certain times, making scheduling
a tricky proposition. Consistency can be a real problem," she acknowledged.
Bias and low expectations are issues, too, said Patti Gregory-Chang, 45, who
started losing her sight at age 12 because of a degenerative eye condition.
Teachers tend to steer people like her, who have some residual vision,
toward large print rather than this essential tool, said the Chicago lawyer.
It's the Braille that got me through law school and it's Braille that I use
in court, but teachers see any kind of vision as better (than using
Braille)," she explained. What kind of message does that send to kids? In an
earlier era, many blind youth attended residential institutions, which often
immersed them in Braille. But in 1974, the federal law changed and students
with disabilities of all kinds were guaranteed public education in the least
restrictive environment - often a neighborhood school, where parents and
staff may be at odds over what will optimally prepare the child for the
future. Convinced that Justin, who is also autistic, wasn't receiving enough
instruction, Egle ultimately decided to find private Braille tutoring.
Without Braille, he will always be dependent on other people … he'll
always be a second-class citizen," she said. Due to confidentiality, North
Suburban Special Education District - which serves 40 visually impaired
students, including Justin - said it cannot comment on instruction provided
for an individual child. For those who live outside urban areas, access to
any kind of Braille instruction can be an obstacle. Beth Sturman has been
frustrated in efforts to get her 12-year-old son's reading fluency to
age-level in Downstate Collinsville, Ill. He was born blind in one eye with
20/400 vision in the other. Never once did his vision teacher suggest
Braille," said Sturman, a special education teacher. Traveling to Chicago
isn't an option, and the district won't pay for services in St. Louis, just
across the river, because it's out of state. Then there's the problem of
kids wanting to fit in. Kids don't want to be different … and
technology just looks cooler than Braille," said Ray Campbell, who works at
the Lighthouse and is president of the Illinois Council of the Blind. His
fingers fly across the embossed dots at 122-words-per minute. At 44, he is
young enough to empathize with youngsters - but he also knows their life
without the skill will be more difficult. And that makes me very sad," he
said. To help promote Braille literacy, the U.S. Mint last month launched
the nation's first coin with readable Braille. On one side of the silver
dollar is a portrait of Louis Braille, who invented the tactile code as a
teen. The coin, which celebrates his 200th birthday, costs about $32 and can
be ordered through the mint (www.usmint.gov). Proceeds will help fund a
national campaign to double the number of visually impaired children
learning Braille by 2015, said Danielsen. Adnana Saric, a senior at Walter
Payton High School, is doing her part to raise Braille's profile. She
recently competed in the Illinois Braille Challenge and hopes to qualify for
the nationals in Los Angeles this summer before attending Loyola University
in the fall. I wouldn't be at this point without Braille," Saric said. If
you rely on audio, it takes something away. Reading is such a
pleasure…There is no substitute for having the book in front of you.
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