Learning Braille

Last Thursday, I started taking a class that will hopefully hold out to be interesting. I am starting to learn Braille Transcription. This class is taking place at The Foundation For Blind Children in Phoenix, AZ. This course, which only starts once a year and goes through the entire year prepares students to take the Braille Transcription Certification from the Library of Congress.

Certified Braille transcribers are responsible for the translations of books, texts and even sheet music into Braille. Many of them work on a volunteer basis for many organizations. While there are other options these days for the blind to experience literary works such as through audio books or through "e-books", there will always be a need for paper publications written in Braille.

American Braille is done in two "grades". Grade 1 Braille is simply the alphabet, punctuation and various special punctuation marks specific to Braille. Grade 2 Braille takes what was learned in Grade 1 but then makes commonly used words and syllables into a more contracted format for a more compact document. In some ways, I associate learning Grade 1 Braille as like learning Japanese hiragana and katakana where learning Grade 2 Braille is like learning Japanese kanji. The training I am going through is intended to make me proficient in Grade 2 Braille.

Myself, I want the skills taught in this course to be able to understand Grade 2 Braille and be able to use it for both writing (either using a computer driven embosser, through the use of a manual brailler or the good ol' slate and stylus) and reading (by touch, not viewing the paper). I don't know how deep this course will get into reading by touch, so I have taken the liberty to learn this piece myself. I am hoping that someday, my Braille and adaptive technology skills will allow me to advance in my current job or allow me to find employment elsewhere.

While I have always a fairly close connection to the blind community and an interest in adaptive technology, I think this new found interest is partially motivated by my current employer. I am very happy that they are trying to do their best to make the workplace adaptive to those with visual impairments. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go. While we may have adaptive technology like JAWS for Windows, we still have ancient ancillary equipment in the office that hinders full accessibility and we also have to educate others in the workplace such as management, the union and other peers on the adaptive technology that we use, why it is important and what else can be done to make the workplace accessible for our current employees as well as future employees with disabilities.

I am currently very involved with this initiative and I am proud to say I have made many new friends as a result of this relationship. I look forward to a very prosperous and productive 2007 for everyone who is involved with this initiative.