Braille: Improving Career Options
January is Braille Awareness Month in honor of Louis Braille’s birthday January 4, 1809.
Kendra Farrow, Project Director at The Older Individuals who aree Blind Technical Assistance Program (OIV-TAC), sent the following link and reported this was one of her favorite articles on learning braille at a later age. After reading “Learning Braille as a Mature Adult,” by Mike Jolls, it’s easy to see why. Mike Jolls, another low vision braille reader, started learning braille at age 46, after struggling through school, college and ultimately career, reading print visually and ever more slowly.
One of the things I find so interesting about Jolls’ story is the repeated theme of braille as something that identifies a person as “blind,” regardless of their functional vision, and that “blindness” is a label to avoid. I suspect this is true of travelers making the decision to use a white cane or not.
Jolls’ story clearly points out that the insistence on using print, while it may have prevented the “blindness” label, interfered with his independence in reading, school, and later career. This is a great article for anyone on the fence about whether or not to teach a young student with low vision braille.
Learn braille yourself: Hadley has several ways to learn braille—the Braille by Touch workshop series, and the Braille by Sight series. Registration is free. Call Hadley Help Desk at 800-323-4238 for more info.
#31DaysofBraille. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions about #31DaysofBraille? Send an email to lowvisiontech at gmail.com, tweet to @lowvisiontech, or leave a comment on the LowVisionTech Facebook Page.