[access-uk] Re: Does the digital age spell the end of Braille? - News - Gadgets and Tech - The Independent
- From: <Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 10:19:22 +0000
Hello all,
I believe that if you were born with no useful reading vision, or have had no
useful reading vision since early childhood, it is dangerous to assume that
Braille can ever be properly replaced by other media. Screen enlargement is of
no early use to someone with no sight at all; audiobooks and computer speech
technology allow a blind person to be read to by a machine. They don't allow a
blind person to read, so the point about the importance of acquiring literacy
skills is well made. You can read all the audio books you like on daisy
players, Kindles and the like, without learning how to write, spell, punctuate,
capitalise and so on. You can do some of this with computer technology, but the
process is rather like travelling from Land's End to John o' Groats at the
speed of a snail - it's logically possible to do it but life's too short to
make the attempt worthwhile. There are other dangers inherent in expecting
blind people do be educated entirely through computer speech output. I've heard
reports that some young blind people are beginning to sound like their
synthesisers, because they are the voices they hear more than any other.
Best regards,
Clive
Clive Lever
Diversity and Equality Officer
Kent County Council
Office: 01622 221163
Email: clive.lever@xxxxxxxxxxx
Kent County Council
Room G37
Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent.
ME14 1XQ
-----Original Message-----
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Gordon Keen
Sent: 21 May 2014 10:52
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Subject: [access-uk] Does the digital age spell the end of Braille? - News -
Gadgets and Tech - The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/does-the-digital-age-spell-the-end-of-braille-9405836.html
Does the digital age spell the end of Braille?
It took more than a century for Braille to be established as the English
reading system for the blind after an acrimonious and lengthy dispute dubbed
the "War of the Dots".
Now it faces another battle as the rise of digital technology means its
importance to blind people is diminishing. It might even fall into disuse
altogether, according to the curator of a new exhibition.
"Braille is embattled. The biggest threat is computer technology, which makes
it much easier not to have to learn it," said Matthew Rubery, from Queen
University of London.
"A lot of people fear Braille won't survive because it will be read by so few
people. The use has declined and there are concerns about funding to keep it
going."
Dr Rubery, with Birkbeck University's Heather Tilley, is curating the
exhibition How We Read: A Sensory History of Books for Blind People. The
exhibition, which opens in November in London, will introduce the development
of alternative ways of reading over the past two centuries.
These include the development of Braille and its embossed-print rivals,
talking-book records, speech-synthesisers and systems that magnify text on
computer screens.
Many of the devices have never been displayed. Dr Rubery said it was an
opportunity "to explore this significant but largely neglected aspect of the
nation's literacy heritage".
A series of competing systems emerged in the 19th century to help blind people
read. Braille was a system published in 1829 by the Frenchman Louis Braille.
Among its rivals were the embossed pages published by William Moon.
About 30,000 people use braille in some form today. About 6,000 of these are
heavy users, according to the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).
But it faces threats from advances in low-vision technology, the greater
availability of recorded materials and reading machines. The RNIB revealed
fewer people are using its Braille library. Steve Tyler, head of planning at
the RNIB, said the body was worried about the decline of Braille, but that it
was putting more resources into teaching products and electronic Braille.
He said: "We do see threats to the system but it is still at the heart of what
we do because of its literacy and educational value."
The exhibition will also chart the development of talking books for the blind,
first provided for veterans blinded in the First World War.
Dr Rubery said: "Ever since Edison invented the phonograph in 1878, people have
been listening to spoken- word recordings. But the first full-length recordings
were made for blind people in the 1930s. Before, the records only allowed a few
minutes."
Among the exhibits is what is believed to be the oldest surviving talking-book
record, from 1935 - the BBC announcer Anthony McDonald reading Cranford by
Elizabeth Gaskell.
"Blind people started listening to long-playing records 15 years before anyone
else," Dr Rubery said. The first spoken-word records released were the Bible
and excerpts from Shakespeare.
The first popular novels were The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
and Joseph Conrad's Typhoon.
Three blind types: Rival systems
Braille
Louis Braille invented his system at the age of 15, taken from a code invented
to send military messages at night. He published it in 1829; it was established
as the English system of choice in 1932.
Boston Line Type
Devised by Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the New England School for the
Blind, it was an embossed, simplified Roman alphabet. The first book using the
system was published in 1834.
Moon
After losing much of his sight from scarlet fever as a child, William Moon
developed a system of raised-print letters, which he published in 1845. It is
still available in the UK and can be generated with computer software.
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