Chapter four had to do with sense and perception. All of the human senses were talked about, including what we see and how we see them. It also mentions how some are unable to do so. Many of us can't imagine what it's like to be blind, although we've probably tried on occasion. If it weren't for Braille, visually impaired people wouldn't be able to read and write. The code, applied to many languages, can be seen in various public places, but few know much more than that. It is read by moving fingers left to right along characters made up of dots. Each character, or cell, is arranged in two columns with six total dots. The number and placement of dots represents a letter, a number, or punctuation. Braille isn't as limiting as one may think, either. Just as people beginning to read or write in English, different shortcuts and symbols can also be learned the longer you do it. According to nfb.org, 90% of blind American children are not taught to read at all. That was a shocking fact to learn for me. It is so important for children born blind to begin reading Braille early on. One research study found that "literacy rates of blind high school students who began their Braille education at an early age are consistent with those of their sighted peers." Hopefully in the future blindness won't hinder people from reaching full potential.
Teaching Braille Makes Sense
No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/175957
I think blind people sense the world different from us, to us the sensation of touch gives us the explanation of an object's property(cold, hot, smooth, rough), and our vision tells us the shape, color of the object. For a blind person, the sensation of touch plus some imagination can do both jobs, and there is no limit to imagination. Perhaps Braille to a blind person, is like movies.
I think most of us have either attempted to read Braille or joked that we could actually read it at one point or another. It is interesting that you say there are slang methods in Braille, I have noticed that some letters are not represented the same way in some words as they are in others, and I've never really understood it.
Interesting fact that many blind are not taught to read. As a person, this affects all aspects of one's life; from voting and being involved in politics to escaping reality by reading a good book. I have seen more braille in public areas. The one place that is a bit disturbing is at the ATM machine in the drive-through lanes of banks.
I never knew how braille worked, so thank you for giving me some brief insight! The part of this article that I found most interesting was that 90% of blind children are never taught to read braille, even though those taught early on are on par with their sighted peers. I don't really know what to take away from that but it was definitely interesting.
Do you think that role of Braille is changing as technology allows for more text readers and voice commands? Do you think there is an advantage to Braille over these other methods?