Author:
Nancy (Interested Teacher of the Visually Impaired)
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Date Posted: 13:50:09 12/08/06 Fri
In reply to:
Rebecca Sill
's message, "Re: Braille usage with Dyslexia" on 16:32:29 04/05/05 Tue
I am a Teacher of the Visually Impaired and I really don’t know anything about dyslexia but it is my understanding that about 80% of the cases dyslexia relate to an auditory processing problem and not a visual processing problem. That certainly explains why totally blind, Braille readers can also be dyslexic. But I am curious about the other 20%. I recently met with a, fully sighted, 7th grade girl whose auditory comprehension is very good but who struggles to read. Her mother asked about Braille and I thought that it was at least worth trying. I tested her and found her tactual discrimination and letter recognition to be good. I think Braille may have been a good solution for her if the problem/solution was discovered earlier. It is very easy to learn the literary Braille code. You basically have to memorize 222 characters. With 8 hours of direct instruction a week a newly blinded adult should be able to master the literary code and all its rules in about 2 years. So, if all went well and Braille really worked, this particular student would just begin to replace her print materials with Braille materials by 9th grade. Unfortunately her Braille reading rate would probably still be too slow to be functional. It seems that audio books are the best solution for her. I have to assume that's what the experts at the Dyslexia Research Institute, dri@dyslexia-add.org, meant when they said that the "difficulties and the limitations would outweigh the positives.” I also think that is why I haven't been able to find very much information about the benefits of teaching Braille to people with visual perceptual problems. Again, I know very little about learning disabilities, much less dyslexia, but I would assume that those types of problems aren’t typically identified until at least 3rd or 4th grade, the point when students are supposed to be able to read chapters from their science and social studies textbooks independently. By then the students are so far behind already that the idea of adding a new literacy medium, Braille, to their studies seems overwhelming. Or could it be that there are just so few Braille instructors across the country that the Braille solution is just under researched? After all, by comparison, the country has a wealth of Occupational Therapists and the multi-sensory/ tactual approach that they can provide is fairly well accepted. It just makes me wonder…. Below are a few articles that might be interesting. I haven’t located the actual articles to read them yet. They are where my research has led me so far.
Birchmeier, Annette K. “Aphasic Dyslexia of Braille in a Congenitally Blind Man.” Neuropsychologia (1985): 177-93.
Fishbein, Harold D. “Braille-Phonics: A New Technique for Aiding the Reading Disabled.” Journal of Learning Disabilities (January 1979): 60-4.
Greaney, John and Rea Reason. “Phonological Processing in Braille.” Dyslexia: An International Journal of Research and Practice. (Dec. 1999): 215-26
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