Ms. Kathy's Kids Blog: Braille Literacy: The Coin on a Mission, the Crisis & the Controversy

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Braille Literacy: The Coin on a Mission, the Crisis & the Controversy

Braille Literacy: The Coin on a Mission, the Crisis & the Controversy.

May 11, 2009, by Donna W. Hill.

Sight, that king of all senses which has given rise to such expressions
as
"Seeing is believing," and "Out of sight, out of mind," requires more
than just
eyes. Our eyes interact with a part of the brain called the visual
cortex. This
remarkable chunk of gray matter collects, sorts and interprets the
jumble of
lights and darks, colors and grays fed to it by the optic nerve,
translating
them into meaningful information.

But, what happens to this highly specialized region of the brain in
blind
people? Does it lie fallow? Not according to research sponsored by the
US's
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Veterans' Administration
(VA). This
research – serendipitously published in the Journal of Vision mere
months before
the unveiling of the Louis Braille Bicentennial silver dollar - proves
that the
visual cortex undergoes a re-deployment. Whether a person has been blind
since
birth or loses sight as an adult, the visual cortex transfers its
allegiance to
other senses and cognitive processes including the sense of touch.

Well, that makes perfect sense. After all, the images of a blind
person's
fingers sweeping a page of Braille to read or delicately touching the
face of a
friend or loved one are commonplace. But, is Braille literacy really all
that
common?

The commemorative coin, which features a child reading Braille on the
reverse
side with the Braille abbreviation for "Braille" above, is the first US
coin
with tactile, readable Braille. Celebrating the 200th anniversary of the
birth
of Louis Braille, inventor of the raised dot reading system bearing his
name, it
is not merely a feel-good, shout-out to blind Americans. Every year,
Congress
selects two non-profits to assist through the issuance of a
commemorative coin.
Proceeds from the sale of the Braille coin support the "Braille Readers
are
Leaders" campaign of the non-profit National Federation of the Blind
(NFB):
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Braille_Initiative.asp

The Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar is an acknowledgement by
the
federal government of a grave social injustice. Braille literacy is
declining.
Only ten percent of the nation's blind children are currently being
taught to
read and write Braille. It's lower for the majority of blind Americans
who lose
their sight as adults. The peak was in the 1960s when fifty percent of
blind
children were taught Braille. The rarity of its use impacts the
employability
of blind people, ultimately requiring tax-payer support of blind adults.

Even NASA is getting involved. When the space shuttle Atlantis launched
on its
final mission to fix the Hubble telescope, it was carrying two of the
Braille coins.

"NASA believes strongly in the importance of educational opportunities
for
everyone," said Joyce Winterton, assistant administrator for education
at NASA
headquarters in Washington, in an NFB press release dated May 9th. "That
is why
we have partnered with the National Federation of the Blind to help
create
programs that enhance scientific study for blind youth. Launching the
first coin
to contain tactile, readable Braille into space symbolizes NASÁs
commitment to
the spread of knowledge by every means and to every individual."

Despite changes in legislation, advances in technology and the
achievements of
some blind people who have proven by their successful lives that
blindness is
not an obstacle to being a lawyer, chemist, mechanic, engineer, doctor,
and so
on, unemployment among working-age blind Americans has remained stagnant
for
decades. Fewer than thirty percent of working-age blind Americans are
employed.
Many of them receive Social Security Disability or Supplemental Security
Income
benefits. If you aren't concerned yet, consider this. The CDC recently
projected
a three-fold increase in diabetic-related blindness among working-age
Americans
by 2050:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/healtThere is never only one reason for such a disparity. Misunderstanding of
blindness by the general public, loop-holes in the laws which favor the
hiring
of people with other disabilities over blind people, as well as cuts in
rehabilitation services all play their part. Nevertheless, one startling
statistic presents itself as a huge beacon of both admonition and hope.
Of the
blind people who are employed, over eighty percent read Braille.

So, why isn't Braille taught to blind kids? Again, the reasons are
complex.
Now that most blind children attend public schools for at least part of
their
education, the decisions about how school districts will meet their
legal
obligations to them are made by administrators who are ever more budget
conscious and hold out little hope for their students with visual
impairments.
Since blindness is far less common than other childhood disabilities
such as
autism and dyslexia, many of the special education teachers responsible
for
teaching Braille have little experience with it. They also are
unfamiliar with
techniques which enable blind people to read two-hundred words per
minute – far
faster than the sixty words per minute that these teachers believe
possible.
They say that Braille is out-dated, easily replaceable with recorded
books and
talking computers.

While no one, including the most ardent Braille readers themselves,
denies the
importance and usefulness of these tools, many say that the exclusive
use of
audio formats leaves blind children functionally illiterate. Children
who listen
to audio books dońt learn spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and
so on.
That this fact alone is insufficient to silence Braille's nay-sayers is
seen by
many blind advocates as evidence that society is comfortable holding its
blind
members to a lower standard, which is itself a recipe for failure.

Blind people who do not read Braille also end up without the tools that
make
functioning in a sighted world possible, such as Braille labels. These
are
commonly made and used by Braille readers for many things around the
house and
office. Labels on kitchen appliances as well as spices and other pantry
items
make it possible for blind people to cook without assistance. Though
they may be
able to use a scanner to read the contents of an office file, only with
Braille
labels can they find the file itself without help. Phone numbers and
other
personal information can be kept in an audio format such as cassettes
and
digital files, but accessing information this way is slow and tedious
compared
to a notebook or file box of Braille note cards. Audio storage also
lacks
privacy. People who lose vision as adults can benefit from learning the
basics
of Braille, even if they don't choose to use it for leisure reading.

Children who have no reading vision are not the only ones affected by
the
current bias against Braille. Others with severe visual impairments,
including
those who are legally blind and have degenerative conditions which will
eventually cause total blindness, are left to struggle with large print
and
magnification. They contort their bodies to get close to a printed page
or a
CCTV (closed circuit television) only to read at a fraction of the speed
of
Braille readers and their sighted peers. The extra time needed to
complete
homework leaves many students, who are in the gray area between fully
sighted
and blind, with no time for extra curricular activities, recreation or
socializing with friends. Reading this way often causes severe headaches
and
other symptoms of eye strain. As these children grow up, they fall
further and
further behind, academically and socially. Parents and educators look
the other
way, rather than encourage the use of a tool which to many holds a
social stigma.

Our Wonderfully Adaptive Brain.

Does the NIH/VA research of the visual cortex underscore the
appropriateness of
Braille as a primary tool for blind people? The findings are published
as
"Neural processing underlying tA functional magnetic resonance imaging Study," by Stilla, Hanna, Hu,
Mariola,
Deshpande, & Sathian: http://journalofvision.org/8/10/13/,
doi:10.1167/8.10.13.

Krish Sathian, MD, PhD, is professor of neurology, rehabilitation
medicine and
psychology at Emory University, and medical director of the Atlanta
Veterans
Affairs Rehabilitation RD Center of Excellence. I wrote to him to find
out what
the research does and does not mean.

First, an explanation of the tasks used in the study. Functional
Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (FMRI) was used to map brain activity in ten blind
subjects as
they touched patterns with their index finger pads. Two tests were given
– one
to measure fine tactile discrimination (judgments about relative
location) and
the other to measure temporal discrimination (judgments about relative
lengths
of time). In the first, subjects touched a series of patterns containing
three
embossed plastic dots in which the central dot was offset by varying
degrees.
They were asked to determine whether the central dot was offset to the
right or
left. In the second, a series of patterns of three embossed dots was
applied to
the finger pads, and the subjects were asked if the duration of contact
was long
or short.

"The first task," wrote Dr. Sathian, "relative to the second (control)
task,
evoked activity in visual cortex of the blind while it did not in those
who were
normally sighted."

The sensory processing in these tasks is similar to that necessary for
Braille
reading, and nine of the ten blind subjects were Braille readers.
However, the
recruitment of the visual cortex in blind subjects is not limited to the
sense
of touch. According to Sathian, previous studies have shown similar
visual
cortical activity accompanying the sense of hearing in blind subjects.
See
"Cross-modal plasticity for the spatial processing of sounds in visually
deprived subjects" by Olivier Collignon et
al: http://www.springerlink.com/content/72363l146k3684g8/

Blindness definitely changes the way the brain processes non-visual
information.
The visual cortex is not involved when sighted subjects are given
similar tests.

"Sighted people were tested, writes Sathian, "not actually in this
study, but in
the companion study (Stilla et al., J Neurosci 27: 11091-11102, 2007).
They were
not blindfolded, but had their eyes closed."

Although blind subjects all had visual cortical involvement in tactile
tasks,
the age at which the subject lost sight may have some influence.

"There was a particular connection between visual cortical areas which
seemed to
be stronger, the earlier the person became blind," Sathian continued,
"Also,
other studies have shown a tendency for visual cortical activity to be
more in
early than late blindness."

Many of the questions raised by this research, however, have yet to be
answered.
I asked Dr. Sathian about the extent of blindness in his subjects.

"Two had very minimal light perception; none had form perception."

Many people who are functionally blind and use non-visual adaptations,
such as
Braille, have more vision than the subjects in this study. It would be
helpful
for future studies to examine at what point in vision loss the visual
cortex
shifts to non-visual tasks. An understanding of this might aid those
teaching
students with low vision.

The Sathian study did not find that blind subjects had an increased
tactile
acuity, although some other studies have. Some fear that this will
foster the
stereotype – so troublesome to some blind advocates – that blind people
are
tactually gifted.

The significance of this increased acuity, however, may say more about
the
importance of experience and practice. I asked Dr. Sathian if this
research
means that blind people are tactually gifted.

"The research on this is mixed," he responded, "Comparing the results of
the JOV
paper to those in the J Neurosci paper (the companion papers on blind
and
sighted using the same task), acuity was comparable. However, as
outlined in the
cited review articles, it appears that there are some tasksRestorative Neurology and Neuroscience, in press) perhaps due to their
specific
kinds of experience."

Furthermore, the benefit of visual cortical involvement in blind people
may be
related to other functions of this complex brain region. I asked Dr.
Sathian if
it was accurate to say that the boost in acuity is not necessarily a
function
of increased ability in the basic tactile circuitry but more likely due
to a
difference in higher cognitive processing such as an increased ability
to pay
attention or plug the sensations of touch into a verbal or
language-based
thought structure which may facilitate a more accurate judgment of what
is being
touched.

"That is our current thinking, he wrote, "but more work needs to be done
to
flesh this out. Another possibility is that various parts of visual
cortex may
be specialized for different non-visual tasks in the blind."

Sathian hopes that capitalizing on the abilities of the visual cortex
will lead
to better designs in tactile interfaces for blind people.

Braille: An Elegant and Versatile System.

Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of Braille is the definition of
literacy
itself. Simply put, it is the ability to read and "write" in a given
language.
In prehistoric times, people could tell and listen to stories. The
ability to
write them down, however, did not come until the development of early
alphabets.
Alphabets are symbolic representations of the sounds of language.
Braille is the
only tool offering such a representation of language which exists for
non-print
readers. There is a symbol for each letter and punctuation mark. Even
capitals
and italics are identified. Braille also has symbols for common letter
groupings
such as "ing," "dis" and "Ed." Common words like "but," "can" and "Do,"
are
represented by their first letters.

Braille, unlike the print alphabet which relies on the shape of each
letter, is
a code. Each Braille letter, contraction or mark is based on a six-dot
"cell."
Each cell has two vertical columns, containing a place for three dots.
These six
positions are referred to by number – from top to bottom the left column
contains dots 1-3; the right column, 4-6.

The Braille code is highly organized. For instance, the configurations
for the
first ten letters of the alphabet – a-j – are repeated for k-t with the
addition
of dot 3. The pattern begins again adding dots 3 and 4 – the one
exception, 'w,
is not in the French alphabet upon which Louis Braille based the code.

Far from being outdated, Braille and its readers are benefiting from the
technology revolution. Though Braille books are much larger than their
print
equivalents, new Braille note takers which can store several gigs of
material --
converting them one line at a time into "refreshable Braille" -- are
highly
portable. Refreshable Braille displays function as computer monitors.
There are
also Braille embossers, which are used with computers as the Braille
equivalent
of a printer.

In a press release announcing the release of the Louis Braille
Bicentennial
Silver Dollar at the NFB's Jernigan Institute in Baltimore on March 26,
2009,
Dr. Marc Maurer, NFB's President, said: "If the blind can read, the
blind can
achieve. The Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar celebrates the man
who
gave literacy to the blind and is a unique and beautiful keepsake, but
it is
also a coin with a mission: to make sure that every blind child and
every adult
losing vision in our nation has the opportunity to learn Braille. "

The "Braille Readers are Leaders" campaign seeks to double the number of
blind
children learning Braille by 2015. NFB will receive matching funds from
the sale
of these coins for every dollar raised privately. The 2006 law –
sponsored by
democrat Chris Dodd of Connecticut and republican Rick Santorum, former
Senator
from Pennsylvania – sets a maximum of $4 million. There is a limited
number of
coins, and any left unsold at the end of 2009 will be destroyed, a
common
practcollectables. The price for proof copies is $41.95. The un-circulated
version,
which is offered in both the mint's standard packaging and an easy-open
capsule
for those who would like to experience the readable Braille on the
reverse side
of the coin, is $33.95. For further information call: 1-800-USAMINT
(1-800-872-6468), or visit: http://www.usmint.gov