Betty Nobel, president of the Canadian Braille Authority, remembers how she once typed up an entire essay, only to find out later she left the whole page blank.
Being a blind student in the 1970s had its challenges.
Nobel says she used a typewriter with a braille keyboard to write her essays. Since she couldn’t see the page, she had to really plan what she wanted to write.
Today, there is software to help the blind read and write. Because of the development of special printers and computer screens, it has never been easier to learn braille.
However, only 10 per cent of visually impaired Canadians know braille, according to CTV.
Now that there is software which converts speech to text, as well as programs that convert text files to audio files, many people do not feel they need braille.
Some would even argue the language is a dying one.
Rob Bender, an assistive technology specialist at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), disagrees. “Everybody thought braille would die after technology evolved. But it’s still here.”
He says he relies on braille for work.
“I’d hate to see how my spelling would be without it. It would be atrocious.”
He uses a computer with voice synthesizers and a braille display, a device that translates the text on his screen into braille, one line at a time. The device has a flat surface with a row of plastic pins. The pins pop up to represent the letters on the screen.
Nobel says braille displays cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000.
Some provincial governments have programs to help people cover the hefty costs of assistive technology.
Nonetheless, there is no nationwide policy, so some people have to struggle to pay for it on their own. She says British Columbia offers a program that helps unemployed people with vision problems get the technology they need to find a job.
Teachers are encouraging their blind and visually impaired students to learn braille, but even that is short-sighted and limited.
“Since most kids go to regular school, they don’t get daily braille instruction. Teachers who know braille have to travel from school to school,” Nobel says.
Ontario is one of the few provinces with an assistive device program, according to Bender. If someone needs a certain device for their home, the ministry of health will finance 75 per cent of the bill, he says.
Blind people who learn braille are more likely to graduate college and university, according to CTV.
“It definitely gave me an advantage,” says Bender, who holds a diploma in computer programing from Conestoga College. “But that was before we had talking computers. Maybe things are different now.”
Nobel, who holds a master’s degree in higher education, says while braille helped her through university, she thinks academic ability, more than a knowledge of braille, is what gets visually impaired people into university.
Since blind people use braille to read documents for work, surf the web and read sheet music, Nobel says she doubts braille will ever become obsolete.
“When sighted people give up reading print, I’ll give up braille.”