Hi, I think this has very little to do with education. It has to do with use. For example, sighted people are physically reading all the time from reading a street sign to an advertisement on TV. Blind people don't get this unless they actively pursue this. They need to actually have braille in front of them. There is no chance for accidental reading as it were. So, I think this has little to do with the educational system. And keep in mind, most people who are blind, lost their sight as adults. You can hardly blame the educational system for that lack of braille literacy. I will agree that, with text to speech, Braille is often pushed to the back for those who didn't grow up using it. This was probably less the case when Braille was all there really was to gain access to printed material.
Ricardo Walker [email protected] Twitter:@apple2thecore www.appletothecore.info On May 4, 2012, at 1:07 AM, Tom Lange <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > Somebody wrote: >> > >>> I also don't buy into the statements that devices which make things >>> easier for us are also making us dumber. >> >> I said something similar to my husband after reading the article which >> was, on the whole, pretty good. But the assertion that screen readers >> and audiobooks are responsible for blind kids/adults not being able to >> spell is ludicrous. It's our lousy educational system that produces >> rotten spellers, not adaptive technology. >> > I hear what you're saying, and I agree, but here's my take on things. With > the advent of text-to-speech, there's been a decreased emphasis on Braille > literacy in this country, to the point that only 10 percent of the blind > population in America are Braille literate, and that to me is just obscene. > When I was a kid, Braille education was compulsory, and school systems made > damn sure that there were funding and resources in place to ensure that blind > kids learned Braille just as sighted kids learned to read print. So while I > applaud the advances in technology, I am a and always will be a staunch > advocate for learning and using Braille. And, if I were running things, I > would bring back the emphasis on Braille literacy, make it compulsory again, > and take it a step further by adding government subsidies for research into > low-cost electronic Braille technology. There's no reason why Braille > technology couldn't be developed that is less expensive than what's out there > today. $100 for a Braille cell is ridiculous. > > Okay, enough of muy ranting. No flames, please. > > Tom > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google > Group. > To search the VIPhone public archive, visit > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en.
