1. Semester –I Year
BRAILLE AND ASSISTIVEDEVICES
23BDSEVI
UNIT-1
Dr.S.Revathi
Asst.Professor
Dept of Special Education
2. BRAILLE
• 1.1Louis braille and the Evolution of Braille
• 1.2Continuing relevance of Braille vis-à-vis
Audio material, braille signs, contractions and
abbreviations – English Braille
• 1.3Braille signs and symbols- regional
language
• 1.4braille reading and writing processes.
• 1.5mathematical braille codes ( Nemeth
codes) and science notations.
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11.
12. LOUIS BRAILLE AND THE EVOLUTION
OF BRAILLE
• Louis Braille is the inventor of the braille code.
He was born on January 4, 1809, in Coupvray,
France. At the age of 3, while playing in his
father's shop, Louis injured his eye on a sharp
tool.
• Despite the best care available at the time,
infection set in and soon spread to the other
eye, leaving him completely blind.
13. • Barely 16, Braille, then a student at the National
Institute for Blind Youth in Paris in 1825, spent every
waking moment outside class poking holes in paper,
trying to come up with a more efficient way to
represent print letters and numbers tactually.
• Until then, he and his fellow blind students read by
tracing raised print letters with their fingers. It was
painfully slow and few blind students mastered the
technique. Writing required memorization of the
shapes of letters and then an attempt to reproduce
them on paper, without being able to see or read the
results.
14. • Louis got his inspiration to use embossed dots to
represent letters after he watched Charles Barbier, a
retired artillery officer in Napoleon's army,
demonstrate a note-taking system he invented of
embossed dots to represent sounds (most of the
soldiers were illiterate) that would allow notes to be
passed among the ranks without striking a light, which
might alert the enemy to their position.
• The army was not impressed, so Barbier brought his
system to the school for the blind. Louis immediately
recognized its merits and spent the next three years
improving upon Barbier's idea.
15. • By 1824, Louis had in place the code that
bears his name and is used today in almost
every country in the world, adapted to almost
every known language from Albanian to Zulu.
• Louis Braille died on January 6, 1852 at the
age of 43, having lived a successful life as
teacher, musician, researcher, and inventor. In
2009, the world celebrated Braille's
Bicentennial.
16. WHAT IS BRAILLE?
• Braille is a system of touch reading and writing
for blind persons in which raised dots
represent the letters of the alphabet.
• Braille also contains equivalents for
punctuation marks and provides symbols to
show letter groupings
17. • Braille is read by moving the hand or hands
from left to right along each line. Both hands
are usually involved in the reading process,
and reading is generally done with the index
fingers.
• The average reading speed is about 125 words
per minute, but greater speeds of up to 200
words per minute are possible.
18. USES OF BRIALLE
• By using the braille alphabet, people who are
blind can review and study the written
word. They can also become aware of
different written conventions such as spelling,
punctuation, paragraphing and footnotes.
19. • access to a wide range of reading materials
• recreational and educational reading,
• financial statements
• restaurant menus.
• Contracts
• Regulations
• insurance policies,
• directories and cookbooks that are all part of daily adult
life.
• Through braille, people who are blind can also pursue
hobbies and cultural enrichment with materials such as
music scores, playing cards, and board games.
20. Braille teaching and learning
• Braille reading and writing skills are the most
important skills for developing efficient language
arts by the children with VI.
• They should develop proper finger position and
movement of a good Braille mechanism.
• Which means, the proper finger position and
movement of the hands over the Braille dots.
• The need to develop pre requisite skills such as
handling books, turning pages, discriminating the
difference of materials / objects, fine motor
coordination and finger dextrinity.
21. • Reading and writing based upon tactual skills
need to start when the child exhibits readiness
for general learning. Best braille readers are
one who can use both hands for reading the
braille dots
22. • What is Braille?
• The Braille system is a method that is used by
blind people to read and write. The braille was
invented by Mr Louis Braille in 1821. He
devised the embossed six dots system based
on a twelve dot secrete code system
developed by a frenchman Charles Barbier
23. • Braille is the tactile approach to reading and
writing for VI in which the letter are formed by
combination of raised dots in a cell. Each
braille characters cell/is ,made up of six dot
positions, arranged in a rectangle containing
two columns of three dots each. The
combination of six dots which can be arranged
into 63 combinations or characters.
24. A Braille Cell
• Dot 1 0 0 Dot 4
• Dot 2 0 0 Dot 5
• Dot 3 0 0 Dot 6
• Classification of Braille System
• Grade 1- Each and every letter of Braille word
• Grade 2-contracted forms of the grade 1
Braille
• Grade 3- short hand system
25. • Braille reading and writing are the deemed to
be the important skills in the language arts for
VI.
• These skills bridge the gap of communication
loss caused by the absence of sight.
26. Who need to learn braille?
• The beginning reader who is blind
• The reader who will use both braille and print.
• The reader who has learned to read using
print who now needs to read using braille.
27. Reading Readiness Activities
• Before teaching braille reading and writing
skills. It is important that the child develops
good tactual discrimination and finger
dextrinity.
• A child should be encouraged to perform
various activities to develop hand
coordination, finger movement, tactual
discrimination and fine muscle coordination.
28. • Should provide hierarchical activities:
• A Mechanical skills
• Tactual Discrimination:
• The ability to discriminate discrete tactual
differences is essential to efficient braille
reading. Do not teach the child by teaching
the dot numbers and avoid teaching the idea
that some letters are reversible pairs for ex ‘r’
and’w’.
29. • Basic form discrimination:
• Assist to understand the basic geometry shapes. These are concrete
experiences.
• The teacher should prepare 4 sets of geometric shapes viz. square,
rectangle, circle and triangle with different thickness and sizes. ( thickness
varying from 2mm to 1.5cm).
• a Form recognition and form discrimination – name of the shape
• Size and weight discrimination – grouping size and weight.
• Serialization – sort out of the set ob objects on the basic of thickness in
the ascending and descending order.
• Common form names : Big-little, larger-smaller, difference, same, light and
heavy.
• Let he child identify and sort difference obj. like stones, leaves, sticks,
seeds, coins and other such materials. For motor coordination – putting
pegs in pegboard.
30. • Finger Dexterity / wrist flexibility
• Involve the child in sorting and sticking
activities
• Provide beads for stinging.
• Collect various sizes of jars with screw type
covers- put small objects, buttons seeds etc
• Teach math concept, counting, pinch cloth
pins on a hanger, paper folding, paper cutting,
pasting.
31. • Hand movements / finger positions
• Demonstrate correct finger position and
movement.
• Make simulated reading materials- thread lines.
• _______________
• ________
• ______ ___________ ________
• ( Ref. Activities given in the assignemnt)
32. Braille Reading
• The finger tips possess special nerve ending
which enable the touch reading. Both the fore
- fingers for the braille reading in university
recommended for a beginner. Lightness of the
touch is stressed and the scrubbing of the
dots should be discouraged.
33. Braille Teaching Method
• Sentence – word- letter method
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
• How I wonder what you are
• Up above the world so high
• Like a diamond in the sky
• The word to be emphasized for the beginner is Star.
• Star diamond diamond diamond
• Diamond Diamond Star diamond
• Diamond star diamond diamond
• Diamond diamond diamond star
• Similar flash cards maybe prepared for other words
34. • Word Analysis Skills
• Consider the words diamond, little, star and sky.
In small flashcards, the words may be analyzed
into letters in the following way.
• Star s……t……a…..r
• Diamond d….i….a….m….o….n….d
• Little l….i….t….t….l….e
• Sky s……k…….y
• ( this will help them to understand the
configuration of the cell)
35. • Word Synthesis skill
• It is a challenge for the child because they could
form new words through the letters analyzed by
them.
• S----- Sun, L---Love D---Doll
• Advantages of Sentence – word- letter approach:
• Children who are taught by letters first try to
remember the letters by counting the dots and
this in turn influence the scrubbing because the
child recognizes the letter through forms, This
method contributes fast reading skills
36. Reading Speed
• Through:
• Silent Reading,
• Using proper hand position
• Encourage recreational reading
• Organizing contest
• Encourage family members to learn braille
37. Vocabulary development
• During the primary grades, major attention is
given to developing a sight words and the word
analysis skills that promote independent reading.
• By writing stories
• Verify whether the child understands the
meaning of words by asking to demonstrate his
understanding through body gestures.
• Construct his own note book or dictionary of new
words
• Rhyming exercises, prefix, suffix and etc.
39. Braille Writing
• For writing braille slate and stylus is used by
VI. The impressions of the braille dots will be
downward in the slate and stylus While
writing, the child should punch the dots from
the right to left side of the slate. After this, the
child should reverse the paper and read it
from left to right though it looks strange, but it
is tuned to this system.
40. Skills Necessary for writing
• The six dots 1,2,3,4,5&6 are punched in the
respective cells of the braille slate. It is important
to make sure that the children understand what is
means by a cell or cells of the braille slate.
• The child should possess the following skills:
• 1 Finger manipulation skills
• 2 Fine motor coordination and control of
muscles
• 3 competency to read familiar braille words.
41. • Techniques in writing braille :
• Use the slate or inter-point braille frame for
writing braille
• Paper insertion
• Using locking mechanism
• Punching braille dots
• Writing left – right, reading right -left
42. Technique
• Ask to punch all dots
• Teach easiest formation to begin with
• Left hand should identify the braille cells while the
right hand punches the dots in the previous cells
• Stylus should be held vertically
• After practice, ask to puch the dots of the upper cells
1,2,4,5
• Then lower cells 2,3,5,6
• Easiest formation should be taught first eg ‘a’ is
represented by dot 1.
43. Reading and Writing for VI
• Braille reading should come FIRST and braille
writing should come NEXT.
44. Pre requisite materials
• Prepare materials for the following Sensory Skills:
• F-1 Visual- Album for Low vision children ( Pictures of
leaders, colors, different concepts like spatial, shape, number,
time, money etc )
• F-2 Auditory- identifying different sounds ( Models and
original materials )
• F-3 Tactual- turning a page, threading, straight line, zic-zac
lines ( with different sizes of thread thread, Hard to soft (
paper, cloth, salt paper, velvet paper etc)
• F-4 Olfactory – Different tastes and smells ( Hot and Sweet)
45. • Reading Readiness :
1 Develop a worksheet with all six Braille lines ( 2 Pages)
• 2 Make five lines of different lengths ( 2 Pages)
• 3 Develop a worksheet with Braille lines using 2,3,5 and 6 (
2 pages)
• 4 Make five lines of different length ( 2 Pages)
• 5 Develop a worksheet with Braille lines using dots 3 and 6
( 2 pages )
• 6 Make five lines of different length ( 2 Pages)
• 7 Make a 3 worksheet single cell break in each line
• -- ----- --------- ---- ------- ------
• 8 Make a worksheet using a single dot 3
• DDDD DDDD DDDDD DDDD DDDD
• DDDD B DDDD DDDD B DDDD
46. • 9 In one place on each line, use a different dot
VVVVDVVVVDVVVVDVVVDVDVDVDVVVD
• 10 Follow the braille line and identify the primary shapes in
each line give below
• Ddddd ddddd ddddddd
• 11 Sentence- word –letter method
Star Diamond diamond diamond
Diamond Star Diamond Diamond
Diamond Diamond Star Diamond
• 11 Word analysis ( Flash Cards)
• Star ….. S……t……a……r
• Diamond ….. D….i…….m…..o……n…..d
• 12 Word Synthesis
• S,t,a,r,m,o,n,d, form a new work
• Sun, top, moon, onion day….
47. Possible Questions
• Two Marks
• Define Braille
• Write the uses of slate and stylus
• Mention any two braille translation software
• Write procedures for adding 25+ 36 in taylor frame / abacus
• Write the limitations of abacus/ taylor frame What are the
benefits of contractions?
• Draw the basic mathematical symbols in Taylor frame.
• Mention some of the salient features of Perkins Brailler.
• What are science notations?
• What is an audio material?
48. Five Marks:
1.Convert into braille form with contractions.
Out, with, loud, stand, child, hand, mourn
2. Covert into nemath code
22+66, 70-37, 45/5,567 X 21, (52+71-9)
3. What are the pre requisites of writing braille?
4. List the advantages of braille embossers.
5. Describe the types of braille devices.
6. List the advantages of Taylor frame/Abacus
7. Describe briefly teaching geometry using geometry kit
49. • 15 Marks
• 1. Write an essay on evolution of braille.
• 2. Explain braille reading and writing process
• 3. Tylor frame / Abacus is an assitive tool for teaching math
chn with VI.
• 4. How will you explain division / multiplication/
addition/substraction using tayor frame/ abacus to a young
chn. With VI.
• 5 convert into braille form with contraction.( sentence, words
or a paragraph)
• Convert into science notation and nemath code- H2 + O2
• 2H2O, (xa)2= x2a
• Explain teaching division with an illustration using taylor
frame/abacus
• Explain teaching multiplication using taylor frame.
