Teaching Braille Letters, Numbers, Punctuation, and Contractions to Sighted Individuals

Abstract

Sighted teachers who can read braille visually can provide better instruction and feedback to students with visual impairments who are learning to read braille tactually. Due to the overwhelmingly low ratio of certified braille instructors to children with visual impairments, instruction in visual braille is socially relevant and would greatly improve literacy instruction for children with visual impairments. We conducted a study that used the principles of behavior analysis to teach visual braille reading to sighted teachers. The computer-based teaching program employed a matching-to-sample approach in which participants selected the correct answer from an array. Four undergraduate participants completed the visual braille training program. Participants responded at mastery levels immediately following training, but correct responding decreased during maintenance probes. In addition, participants were able to identify some braille characters when provided a passage written in braille, but they were not able to fluently read braille.