Brailroom

Are college and university-level books on Maths, Physics, Computer Science, Chemistry, and Biology available in braille anywhere in the world? Are these affordable enough? Is there any international library featuring such a collection?

If you attend school in the United States, your college or university will be required to ensure that you have textbooks in an accessible format. (The specific laws you’ll be depending on are Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.) You will not be required to pay more for your books than other students are, but you may not be able to keep them at the end of the semester. (I tend to think you ought to be, but sometimes schools borrow the texts to provide to students and have to return them at the end of the semester.) The schools have to pay to get the accessible formats — this can be as easy as having a publisher mail an electronic copy of the book or scanning a book without images, diagrams, columns, etc., and running it through OCR software, or as difficult and expensive as having a book with a lot of visual elements Brailled.

In many subjects, digital versions of texts are as accessible as Braille versions, but math, for instance, is one area where I don’t know anyone with experience who claims that there is any alternative to Nemeth Braille that comes close to providing the same level of access.

To qualify for accessible texts, you’d have to provide a copy of an evaluation, in English, explaining your need for the Brailled versions. That means that for people coming from many areas, the evaluation would end up being paid for here, and since most of us do not qualify for government-funded health care that’s a burden you might not have to assume if you want to study in some other countries. On the other hand, blindness is a lot easier (and cheaper) to establish than a number of other conditions that affect one’s ability to access print. So if you want to study in one of the above fields and you are already in the US or you can get to the US to study, there are at least options.

Braille was designed for letters of the Latin alphabet. However, Countries like China, Japan and Tibet use a completely different writing system. If so, do these countries that do not use the Latin alphabet have different braille system that they use to enable blind people read the characters? (especially as there are over 10,000 characters in these languages.)

There are many braille alphabets, designed for Arabic, Chinese etc. They are combinatory, just as we transliterate characters into pinyin for Chinese, so characters are transliterated into Braille.

Check out some of the details here:

http://www.fblind.org/eng/Arabic_Braille.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_braille

What is the pattern of laying out the dots in the braille alphabet system?

dot dot 2 bumpy dots 2 slanted dots and 1 hole dot

I’m in college and i have a special education class, the teacher said that we need to learn how to read braille for the next week, if we can’t that’s 10 points less from our final grade. So i need some tips about learning braille please. Thank You.
@Kevin Actually, that’s exactly what he plans : /

I doubt very much you understood the task. You cannot learn to read Braille in a week. Not even in a semester. You could learn to visually read Braille letters in a week. Or learn the basic gramatical structure of Braille. Or learn about the different grades of Braille. You need to discuss this with your professor further.

Im not blind, but i really want to learn. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to teach myself (i’d rather not take classes)? Are there any workbooks that someone suggests? What are the best methods to learning? Also just wondering is learning braille somethig good to put on a college application? Im 13 so i dont really have to think about that yet but im just curious. Thx to all answers

Id get a printed dot chart (one ink and one pressed) and study them. unfortunately, we are used to memorizing sight symblols, not touch symbols, so it may be hard to memorize… but id take one letter at a time and just sit down and go back and forth, looking at and feeling the letters.

-Good luck,
Rachel

I’ve recently begun to learn braille because I find it really interesting. I’ve learned grade 1 braille (the letters, numbers, and punctuation), but some sites I’ve researched say that grade 1 is not what is utilized in the real world. So what braille is on the signs in public places and such? Also, what kind of braille is published in books? Is it a combination? Thank you!

If you are a beginner you start with grade one but you can easily get to two.Fluent braille is grade three

I am registered blind but can see to an extent. i would like to learn braille but i don’t know how to go about this.
I just ordered a card with the alphabet on it

you need 1) a friend 2) a blindfold. sit down with the friend and wear the blindfold. have them move your hands from letter to letter, until you have memorized all the letters, punctuation, and numbers, etc. then, go to the library, and get a braille children s book. practice from there. keep the blindfold on. once you have taken away your sight completely, the sensitivity in your fingers is highly elated. keep thew blindfold on until you are confident. good luck!!

My new friend is blind and he lost his sight fully 3 years ago, and is a mature adult. How long does it take to learn how to read braille? He was reading a book in Braille when I called him and said it’s still a bit new for him, so just wondering.

There are two issues. One is learning the Braille characters and the punctuation/ abbreviation system and this you can do if you are sighted or not. It can be learned rather quickly. BUT learning Braille by touch is very different. Some people simply can’t learn it as their fingertips have lost the sensitivity needed to distinguish the dots. I tried and I could not learn it by touch at all. Some people eventually can learn if they keep trying. Some people learn it fairly quickly. Ask your friend!

I work for a charity who work with people who are blind or who have a visual impairment and we make braille jewelery. Due to some problems with our current supplier we are needing to find a new supplier who can make silver plated or pewter rectangular tiles that have a letter on one side and it in braille on the other side. The tiles should have two holes running horizontally across them for putting onto wire or elastic. Can anyone do this or know of someone/place that can?

I went through 6 pages of listings and this is all I could find. I did not look for a particular country hoping that if one did not have the tile you were looking for they could give you one that could help.

http://www.nbp.org/ic/nbp/BRACE.html -
http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/braille-alphabet-bracelet…
http://www.amazon.com/Braille-Jewelry-Alphabet-Bracelet…
http://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/Item.action?id=112613991
http://www.bigthink.com/ideas/24604 -http://www.astore.amazon.com/chicspeceduce-20/detail/B001YUJAJM – Cached
http://www.braillejewelry.blogspot.com -
http://www.magnifyingaids.com/Braille_Jewelry -http://www.homeportfolio.com/catalog/guide/Tile_%26_Stone/Tile/…
http://www.carroll.org/category/the-carroll-store/miscellaneous

I heard of the Braille alphabet and it is very interesting. But, is there a spoken Braille language? If not, wouldn’t it be cool if a spoken Braille language was invented to go along with the alphabet?

I believe that each Braille letter corresponds to an English letter, or whatever language it is written in, to mean that it is basically just a code for English (or whatever language it is written in).