By: Mary LaBrecque
Hello! If you are reading this, you probably want to learn a little more about the importance of Braille literacy within the blind and visually impaired community. Maybe you yourself even want to learn some Braille? Well, I can absolutely tell you that as someone with usable vision, using a tool with the objective of tactilely feeling the Braille or art you are creating, I have still found it very interactive and enjoyable to use the BrailleDoodle.
I myself was born with a visual impairment, but can see quite well. I’ve had many years to adapt, gain mobility skills, identify what accommodations I may need, etc. I’ve have always been able to read print. When assignments were given to me during middle and high school, they were primarily large print. So, I do not know Braille, but have always wished I did.
I’ve never really had the chance to learn, and have only ever known that the letter A is a dot. I never knew about the 6-dot column system, and that each dot was numbered, until very recently. As someone with vision loss, I do have my reasons for wishing to know Braille. Firstly, vision loss fluctuates, and I don’t know if I will ever need to access Braille for reading. Also, as someone who works with kids who are blind/low vision, Braille knowledge could be a great tool to have for them.
The BrailleDoodle may be helpful if anyone in your family has vision loss. Parents could wish to know the code—Braille—that their child reads and writes in. A parent also may want to experience art with their child. And with the BrailleDoodle, they can do that.
The BrailleDoodle is partially for learning art, with the back side being just like a blank canvas for art creation. It has steel balls tucked inside the tablet, brought to the surface when they are run over with the attached magnetic stylus. Imagination can run wild, creating and feeling anything you’d like.
Inside the box, you will find a few stencils. One hastrees and a house, showcasing foreground, middle ground, and background. The tree in the front is bigger and appears closer to you than both the house and the other tree, providing a sense of foreground and background in an artistic way. Of course, I have been able to visualize that, but it is also accessible by feel. A blind child will be able to access the difference between foreground and background, solely by feel. They will also be able to see the shape of a tree, and feel how the leaves bushel out, which may be something they have never been able to experience in their own backyard.
It has been very fun to feel the pull of the balls from inside the tablet as they come up and become tactile. The BrailleDoodle as a whole is a very interactive device. You can hear, feel, and maybe even see each individual ball make its way to the surface. This tool is double-sided. The other side is divided into cells containing the whole Braille alphabet, some common words, and space to write your own sentences at the bottom. So, there are many learning opportunities! But, why is it important to know Braille?
The BrailleDoodle is made for all ages. In a modern world of VoiceOver and digital readers, it is still important for the blind and low vision youth to learn Braille. To put it in the simplest terms, you don’t want to walk into the incorrect public restroom, do you? Quite a lot of public access points are marked with signs, with Braille underneath, for those who need it. If you needed Braille and didn’t know it, well, that just sounds like a bit of a mess for navigating public areas. And what better time to start than as a kid!
The fun, sensory nature of this device could motivate any child to learn with it. One of my personal favorite features of the BrailleDoodle is how you can repeat the Braille dot combinations in their respective cells–simply by pushing the balls back down—as many times as you need/want, until you memorize that combination. It is learning while playing, allowing imagination and creativity to flourish.