[Athen] Does your student really need Braille?

[Deborah Armstrong via athen-list]

I've written about this before, but I was inspired to review it again with experiences from several of my recent students.
Braille is vital if your student needs it. And though it is time-consuming to properly produce, it is essential for many students' success.
However, it's important in my opinion to carefully investigate whether it is actually appropriate.
Knowledge
We see many people loosing their vision and learning Braille. Younger folks, especially are excited about becoming more capable with Braille. They are reading recipes, keeping calendars and contact lists and with a Braille display or embosser, proofreading.
But that's not reading. It's great, but many don't have the speed or proficiency to get through academic material. If it's a STEM course they need to know the proper code, such as Nemeth. If it's Music, they of course need to know Music Braille.
I try to give my student the first reading assignment in Braille to ensure it's working out before I emboss, or have embossed an entire book. I have students after that who decide they don't really "know" Braille, and I have others impatiently asking why I didn't give them the entire thing.
I also have students with special needs, they cannot read punctuation, or they can only read Grade 1. I might give them a handout with those special needs, but not a whole book.
Last year, I actually had an angry parent whose daughter could not read capital letters or punctuation but wanted a whole book. Sorry but for academics, if you cannot read capital letters or punctuation, you can't read a whole college textbook!
Braille Displays
Modern displays from Humanware and Hims and a few other less popular manufacturers make it possible for the student to read Braille on that device, and not need a computer. The NLS eReader is free to U.S. citizens.
A current student reads one of her textbooks on the NLS eReader, and another she requested in embossed Braille.
If what the student is reading is basically text, for example a novel or history book, then a Braille display might save you hours of embossing. Though they are expensive, enterprising students find funding sources, including the department of rehab or they use the NLS eReader. If they do have a Braille display, you should also give them the document in a format they can read on the computer with speech, as they often use Braille when away from a computer, or to check the way words are spelled.
When a document is transcribed in to Braille it can be saved as a BRF (a Braille ready file) that can be directly sent to an embosser or downloaded to a display.
One huge advantage of using a display is the student can search for phrases, just as eBook readers let a sighted user experience this advantage over a printed copy.
However most displays are single lines, that is twenty or forty characters, and this can be slow going if it's the only way to read.
File formats
Most modern displays can read other formats, and a BRF file isn't always the best choice. The sophisticated markup with Daisy, epub, HTML and even Word or PDF with text and headings can make it much easier to navigate a large textbook. If your student's braille display can for example open HTML files and automatically translate them in to Braille, and enables the student to navigate by headings, this gives them more flexibility than a plain BRF file, where they can only navigate by pages. And pages in Braille mean the next embossable page, not the next print page when navigating on a display.
Even more primitive displays connected to a computer work best when the document has markup, so jumping to a particular page, heading or section is not tedious. Yes, you can use a search command but then you have to know what you are searching for. Many chapters don't have the actual word "Chapter" at their beginnings. So if a student needs to jump to chapter seven without any markup it can become quite frustrating with a BRF file.
And most modern displays can auto-translate so there's no need for you to do the tedious job of transcribing.
Of course, this is all irrelevant if we have a math textbook, science, music or anything that a display isn't going to translate automatically. They can only do literary Braille.
Also a foreign language textbook must be marked up by hand because they switch between English and the language to be learned. Braille displays and screen readers cannot auto-translate with accuracy there. Jaws can do some language switching with speech but not perfectly.
Sources
Be sure the book your student needs is not already available. Here in California community colleges have the advanced text production center which transcribes and embosses anything I need that's time-consuming or difficult. They have a catalog of everything produced.
The National Braille Press and the American Printing House for the Blind sell Braille textbooks, though admittedly, most are for K12.
Bookshare can also provide for sale embossed copies of Braille through the Braille institute in Los Angeles, though the Daisy version to be read on a computer and/or Braille display will offer more navigation. Their transcriptions however are produced by computer and not by hand, so like the automatic translation built in to a Braille display, will not necessarily preserve complex formatting or retain symbols needed for STEM.
Local transcribing groups across the nation also retain electronic files of materials they produced.
Lastly, the National Library Service for the blind and Handicapped has free Braille recreational reading on their BARD (Braille and Audio Reading) site. For classic literature, popular works, and especially music scores, this is the place to get BRF files you can immediately emboss or download to a student's display and they have all been hand-transcribed. Make sure your institution  sets up a free account.
Hardcopy Braille must be transcribed, embossed, collated and bound. If you need to do it, you must.
I am a fluent and rapid Braille reader. I have read Braille since I was five, and I'd be the first one to ask for an embossed Braille book when I needed it. But there are simply many times I do not. Make sure your students know when they do and do not need it as well.
--Debee




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