Despite the increasing use of information technology in the education of the visually impaired, braille remains the only effective means by which those unable to see print can become literate. This article discusses American and British experiments which have demonstrated that many people can be taught to read braille considerably faster. A strong implication of the results of these experiments is that systematic training in braille reading should continue throughout and beyond the primary stage.
Student personnel services for the elementary school utilizing counselor, social worker, and psychologist are discussed with respect to their overlapping and unique skills. As a solution to the manpower shortage, a program for multidisciplinary training of paraprofessionals is suggested.
Discusses the braille code as a medium of communication and describes four experiments in which Standard English Grade 2 Braille is compared with three “reduced” codes and one “expanded” code. Although the criterion used in the experiments is “speed of reading,” other criteria that need to be taken into account are discussed, the most important being space-saving and ease of learning. The authors see these investigations as part of the preliminary work that must be undertaken if braille is to be made accessible to a larger number of readers, particularly to children and adults of average and below-average ability.
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