by Cheree Heppe
There is a staggering drop in literacy for braille reading in the blindness community. Could that have to do with the fact that it is very difficult to get braille?
Braille books take up three times as much space as printed books occupy. They also weigh more; it’s like carrying around huge, old tomes for just part of a book.
Small, portable braille devices already exist with braille teaching materials and interesting books with note-taking capabilities. That access would improve interest in use of braille in practical, actionable ways by giving very portable, powerful, modern tools that interface with computers and iPhones and use a writing system that blind people read and use.
Is it that we blind people have to realize that we don't have economic leverage and be grateful for any crumbs sighted people send us, even when it isn't modern and won't really do the full, competitive job? Or is it actually the case that blind individuals are not being trained to teach the blind, and sighted people sent to teach the blind don't know braille themselves and don't want to bother?
I call BS. How literate would most able-bodied, sighted people be if they could not get access to pen and paper and, instead, carried around a notebook-sized slate board and chalk for any written communication?
If kids in India and other places make braille displays and braille devices and get them to market, how is it that the United States of America keeps putting out the vibe that braille displays and notetakers that blind people already use effectively and readily in very small form factors, that offer braille in all sorts of written, mainstream access to articles and printed materials with them whenever we need it, remain out of reach? And those blind people have to be so, so, so deserving.
No. No. And no.
Braille devices are not like buying a candy bar at the convenience store, but they are available, and we should not be discouraged and prevented from getting them.
Service groups should help us to obtain braille notetakers and displays.
Use recordings, yes, use whatever works because we have to use all the tools we can get to achieve parity. Just try hearing your audio device blabbering in the middle of a professional meeting. Try listening to travel directions in really loud ambient settings, like train stations and subway platforms, where tactile contact with a braille display would give directions and information silently and effectively.
Federal- and state-funded rehab services meant to bring blind people into mainstream work and living fail to provide necessary equipment and services. The gatekeeper mentality needs to go. There are blind individuals using these devices who have enough knowledge of what they do and how they work to keep devices clean, free of grit and in order, as that old expression goes. Blind people should have braille displays.
Why not give blind people special equipment that directly benefits the blind? Where, in fact, are all those dollars going, if not directly to blind consumer services?