What are the Similarities and Differences in Reading Braille and Reading Written Words?
Why This Topic?: This topic was chosen because we didn't know much about braille, nor how it worked. We thought it would be interesting to research braille in order to learn more about it, and then make connections to some of the concepts we have discussed in class about reading written words. In addition, not much research has been done comparing these two populations, so we thought it would be interesting to learn more about some of the research that has been done up to this point.
What is Braille?
"Braille is a system of raised dots that can be read with the fingers by people who are blind or who have low vision" (American Foundation for the Blind, 2020, para. 1).
Braille is NOT its own language
Many languages have their own unique systems of braille
(American Foundation for the Blind, 2020)
Structures of Braille
Braille Cells: The spaces in which the braille symbols are located. A full one typically has six raised dots, that are placed in two rows, and three columns. The filled in cells create the characters of the alphabet (American Foundation for the Blind, 2020).
Alphabetic Braille: The characters (the braille cell) stand for letters, which correspond to sounds (Veispak et al., 2013).
Contracted (Logographic) Braille: The characters (the braille cell) stand for small words (Veispak et al., 2013).
