Vinitha Gadiraju
Shaun K. Kane
ABSTRACT
Braille literacy has fallen in recent years, and many blind children now grow up without learning Braille. However, learning Braille can increase employment chances and improve literacy skills. We introduce BrailleBlocks, a system to help visually impaired children learn and practice Braille alongside a sighted parent. BrailleBlocks comprises a set of tangible blocks and pegs, each block representing a Braille cell, and an associated application with games. The system automatically tracks and recognizes the blocks so that parents can follow along even if they cannot read Braille. We conducted a user study to test BrailleBlocks with five families, with five parents and six visually impaired children. The contributions of this work are a novel approach to Braille education toys, observations of how visually impaired children and sighted parents used this system together, their insights on current issues with Braille educational tools, and actionable feedback for future Braille-based learning tools.
Supplemental Material
Available for Download
Preview video captions
Video figure captions
The following are included in the auxiliary material: 1) A video describing demonstrating the BrailleBlocks system; 2) A caption file for that video; 3) A thumbnail image; 4) A video teaser; 5) A caption file for the video teaser.
- American Print House for the Blind. 2017. Annual Report 2017: Distribution of Eligible Students Based on Federal Quota Census of January 4, 2016 (Fiscal Year 2016). www.aph.org/federal-quota/distributionof-students-2017/Google Scholar
- Maria C. C. Araújo, Antônio R. S. Silva, Ticianne G. R. Darin, Everardo L. de Castro, Rossana M. C. Andrade, Ernesto T. de Lima, Jaime Sánchez, José Aires de C. Filho, and Windson Viana. 2016. Design and Usability of a Braille-based Mobile Audiogame Environment. In Proceedings of SAC 2016. (p. 232238.)Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cynthia L. Bennett, Erin Brady, and Stacy M. Branham. 2018. Interdependence as a Frame for Assistive Technology Research and Design. In Proceedings of ASSETS 2018. (p. 161--173.)Google Scholar
- Dorwina Nowill Foundation for the Blind. 2016. Meet Braille Bricks #BrailleBricksForAll. Video. Retrieved September 13, 2019 from www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV79fzEVr_s.Google Scholar
- Braille Works. 2019. Braille literacy statistics and how they relate to equality. http://www.brailleworks.com/braille-literacystatistics/wGoogle Scholar
- Stacy M. Branham and Shaun K. Kane. 2015. Collaborative accessibility: How Blind and Sighted Companions Co-create Accessible Home Spaces. In Proceedings of CHI 2015. (p. 2373--2382.)Google Scholar
- Stacy M. Branham and Shaun K. Kane. 2015. The Invisible Work of Accessibility: How Blind Employees Manage Accessibility in Mixed-ability Workplaces. In Proceedings of ASSETS 2015. (p. 163--171).Google Scholar
- Richard Goldberg, Randal Cole, Arielle Drummond, and Diane Brauner. 2005. Apparatus and method for Braille instruction, U.S. Patent Application 10/689,796, Filed April 21, 2005.Google Scholar
- João Guerreiro, Daniel Gonçalves, Diogo Marques, T. Guerreiro, Hugo Nicolau, and Kyle Montague. 2013. The Today and Tomorrow of Braille Learning. In Proceedings of ASSETS 2013, Article 71, (p.1--2.)Google ScholarDigital Library
- Amy Hurst and Jasmine Tobias. 2011. Empowering Individuals with Do-It-Yourself Assistive Technology. In Proceedings of ASSETS 2011. (p.1118).Google ScholarDigital Library
- Judith Hurst. 1997. Talk from the VI teachers' lounge.Google Scholar
- Rabia Jafri. 2014. Electronic Braille Blocks: A Tangible Interface-based Application for Teaching Braille Letter Recognition to Very Young Blind Children. In Proceedings of ICCHP 2014. (p. 551558.)Google ScholarCross Ref
- Varsha Koushik, Darren Guinness, and Shaun K. Kane. 2019. StoryBlocks: A Tangible Programming Game to Create Accessible Audio Stories. In Proceedings of CHI 2019, Paper 492. (p.1--12).Google Scholar
- Young T. Kwon and Ji Ho Kang. 2008. Braille block. U.S. Patent Application No. 11/854,385.Google Scholar
- The LEGO Group. 2019. Braille Bricks. www.legobraillebricks.com/.Google Scholar
- Lauren R. Milne, Cynthia L. Bennett, Richard E. Ladner, and Shiri Azenkot. 2014. BraillePlay: Educational Smartphone Games for Blind Children. In Proceedings of ASSETS 2014. (p.137--144.)Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cecily Morrison, Nicolas Villar, Anja Thieme, Zahra Ashktorab, Eloise Taysom, Oscar Salandin, Daniel Cletheroe, Greg Saul, Alan F. Blackwell, Darren Edge, Martin Grayson, and Haiyan Zhang. 2018. Torino: A Tangible Programming Language Inclusive of Children with Visual Disabilities. Human-Computer Interaction. (p.1--49).Google Scholar
- Lutfun Nahar, Azizah Jaafar, Eistiak Ahamed and A. B. M. A. Kaish. 2015. Design of a Braille Learning Application for Visually Impaired Students in Bangladesh. Assistive Technology, 27:3, (p.172182.)Google Scholar
- National Federation of the Blind. 2009. The Braille literacy crisis in America.Google Scholar
- Perkins Brailler. Retrieved September 13, 2019 from brailler.perkins.org/pages/perkins-brailler.Google Scholar
- PlanToys. Braille Alphabet A-Z. www.global.plantoys.com/shop/learningeducation/braille-alphabet-a-z.html.wGoogle Scholar
- Sara Price, Yvonne Rogers, Michael Scaife, Danae Stanton, and Helen Neale. 2003. Using 'Tangibles' to Promote Novel Forms of Playful Learning. Interacting with Computers 15, no. 2. (p.169--185.)Google ScholarCross Ref
- Mitchel Resnick, John Maloney, Andrés MonroyHernández, Natalie Rusk, Evelyn Eastmond, Karen Brennen, Amon Millner, Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver, Brian Silverman, and Yasmin Kafai. 2009. Scratch: Programming for All. Communications of the ACM. (p.60--67)Google Scholar
- Sue Rogers. 2007. Learning Braille and Print Together - the Mainstream Issues. British Journal of Visual Impairment, 25(2), (p.120--132.)Google ScholarCross Ref
- Ruby Ryles. 1996. The Impact of Braille Reading Skills on Employment, Income, Education, and Reading Habits. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness 90. (p.219--226.)Google ScholarCross Ref
- Abigale Stangl, Jeeeun Kim, and Tom Yeh. 2014. Technology to Support Emergent Literacy Skills in Young Children with Visual Impairments. In Proceedings IDC 2014. (p. 321--324).Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anselm L. Strauss. 1987. Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Tack-Tiles. 1999. www.tack-tiles.com/Google Scholar
- Michael J. Tobin, and Eileen W. Hill. 2015. Is Literacy for Blind People Under Threat? Does Braille Have a Future? British Journal of Visual Impairment, vol. 33, no. 3, (pp. 239--250.)Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jaroslaw Wiazowski. 2014. Can Braille be Revived? A Possible Impact of High-end Braille and Mainstream Technology on the Revival of Tactile Literacy Medium. Assistive Technology, 26(4). (p.227--230.)Google Scholar
Index Terms
- BrailleBlocks: Computational Braille Toys for Collaborative Learning
Recommendations
BrailleBuddy: A Tangible User Interface to Support Children with Visual Impairment in Learning Braille
CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsLearning to read Braille is crucial to academic success for people with blindness or severe visual impairment. In our work, we investigate how we can support early learning of Braille with tangible computing. In a human-centered inclusive design process ...
BrailleBlocks: Braille Toys for Cross-Ability Collaboration
ASSETS '19: Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and AccessibilityLess than 10% of blind people in the United States are Braille readers, yet Braille literacy remains crucial for education and employment [2,3]. BrailleBlocks is a system to help blind or visually impaired children learn Braille with a sighted parent. ...
Groupware Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities
UAHCI '09: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Part III: Applications and ServicesThe accessibility issues of Groupware applications prevent visually impaired and other persons with disabilities access to these highly graphical interfaces. To address the accessibility issues persons with disabilities have with Groupware, a recent ...
Comments