Blindness is a condition that occurs with complete loss of vision in two eyes. A person ceases to feel the light and see something. A similar condition can result in a loss of ability to navigate in the environment (domestic blindness) and the inability to do their job with the help of various optical devices (professional).
Causes
Impaired or loss of vision can be caused by various factors. The consequences of intrauterine diseases or fetal malformations lead to congenital blindness. Loss of vision affects children not older than ten years and adults who have reached the age of fifty. This is due to the fact that the child either already has congenital blindness, or acquires it due to diseases or eye injuries. Mature people become blind due to vascular diseases or the appearance of glaucoma. In the latter case, corneal transplant surgery may help return vision.
Employment of disabled people
Despite physical limitations, blind people in Russia have the opportunity to prove themselves in different professions. The blind society is engaged in their employment, which also carries out cultural, political and educational work among people with disabilities. The centers of their government are located in Moscow and other large cities. Special books in Braille and flat characters give blind people the opportunity to learn to read, write, print.
Educational process
In Russia, the education of blind and visually impaired children is compulsory. Schools accept students with vision from 0.05 to 0.2. For teaching children in this category magnifiers and other techniques that improve vision are used. In addition, a font with larger letters is used. Specialized schools take children who are completely blind and with a vision of up to 0.05. Learning using different methods and visual aids focuses on hearing and touch. The libraries for the blind have audio and regular publications, special braille signs. The Russian State Library for the Invisible (the largest institution of this type in our country) contains specialized manuals. This, in particular, is not only the publications mentioned above, but also a huge collection of relief-volumetric models that allow people with loss of vision to recognize the kinds of different objects and feel them.
Use of computer electronic devices
An alternative to replacing print media is audiobooks. With their help, you can listen to the dramas (with pauses, by sections) and performances on a digital player. Volunteers also make their contribution, who create audiobooks on special sites that are free to listen to and distribute. Various devices that replace vision are produced and developed. The model of visual replacement devices (Tactile Vision project) is a new patented means of encoding and signal transmission. Publications that use Braille (Russian), a keyboard and a display help people with disabilities to work with texts by creating and editing them. A special program based on a speech generator, with which information is read from the screen, also makes a big contribution to the full life of blind people.
Braille
This is a special reading and writing training system for the blind. It was developed in 1824. The Frenchman Louis Braille (fr. Louis Braill), the son of a shoemaker, lost his sight at the age of three due to an inflamed eye with an awl. At fifteen, he creates a method for writing and reading letters. Subsequently, he was named by the name of the creator.
The font for the Braille blind was different from the linear type of the markings of Valentin Gayui. The "night method", developed by artillery captain Charles Barbier (FR Charles Barbier) to read military reports in the dark, prompted the creation of the boy. The disadvantage of the Barbier system was the too large size of the characters, limiting the number of them on the page. Using Braille printing, blind people learn to write and read. This method promotes the development of grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills. In addition, using this method, the blind or visually impaired can get acquainted with graphs and complex schemes.
Structure
What is braille? How does drawing and reading happen? The letters in Braille are represented by six dots divisible by exactly two columns. The text is read from right to left, and on the next page it already goes from left to right. However, there is a certain difficulty in perceiving this font. It lies in the fact that the text is read on the back page on the bulges from the punctured marks on the other side. The points are numbered from top to bottom on the columns and are read first from the right, then from the left. How does this happen? The upper right corner is the location of point 1. Below it goes 2. The lower right corner is 3. The top left is position 4, then the bottom is 5, and 6 in the lower left corner.
Some tiflopedagogues offered to swap 1 and 3, but their proposal was not supported. Later, expanding the Braille (Russian, in particular), they added 7 under 3 and 8 under 6. A cell without a puncture is a certain character. There are generally accepted norms for the size of points and the distances between them and the columns. The minimum mark height sufficient for recognition is 0.5 mm. 2.5 is the gap between punctures; 3.75 mm horizontally, 5 mm vertically is the distance between cells. This structure allows the blind to easily and quickly master reading skills, easily recognizing signs to the touch.
Printed Braille text sheets come in a variety of formats. But a leaf is considered traditional for Russia, which includes twenty-five lines of thirty and thirty-two characters each, with a total size of twenty-three by thirty-one centimeters. For people with vision loss, braille is the only way you can learn to write and read. With these skills, people with disabilities not only become literate and independent, but also get the opportunity to find a job.
How is the system used?
The braille includes 63 informative characters and a space (64th). The extended system contains 255 characters. In it, as in the usual, there is also a gap. Since the total number of different combinations of points is limited, multicellular characters are often used. They consist of several characters, which individually have their own functions. Additional characters can also be used (numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet). Each symbolic combination is characterized by several values, the number of which may exceed ten.
The braille is applied to the paper using special writing objects - a special device and stylus. For this reason, any changes in the configuration, selection, size, shape of the letters are impossible. It is customary to highlight characters using special characters. They are preceded by uppercase and lowercase letters. If there are different types of fonts, these characters are placed before and after the highlighted words or parts of the sentence. The mathematical root, superscript, and subscript are highlighted on both sides by a symbol. To create text or its part in italics, it is placed between special marks - conditional tags. Here we can note some similarities with the html system. It also applies tags.
Grammar Features
The braille has characteristic features in terms of its construction. They consist in changing some grammatical norms. Therefore, a blind person who has learned to write thanks to this system ("brailleist") will begin to make certain mistakes when working on a regular computer that is not adapted for people with disabilities. The braille differs from the usual one in the following indicators:
- uppercase letter is ignored;
- after the decimal point and before the dash, no space is put;
- there is no gap separating the sign of the number and the number;
- the same designation is used for similar characters (dashes and hyphens are the only punctuation marks in the system).
Similar grammatical flaws are the norm for Braille writing. A blind person will admit them until he passes special additional training.
System value
Using various combinations of dots in one cell, Braille writing reproduces alphabetic, digital, musical symbols. Designations of this system are used to write foreign words and letters, computer and mathematical symbols, equations. Braille is an effective tool for developing grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills for blind people. Also, this system simply and easily describes graphs and diagrams that are very difficult to describe verbally.
Allowance
Having mastered the Braille, a blind child can begin to get to know and work on a computer with a special display and on a special printer. The text is read with the index finger of one or both hands. Perceived by touch, it is quickly understood thanks to the lightness and compactness of the characters. This manual is intended to teach sighted people the Braille system at home. This will provide an opportunity to build communication with non-seeing family members, write notes to them or leave a phone number. It is also important that sighted people learn to read what someone who has studied in the Braille system will write for them. There will be an opportunity to communicate without the mediation of others. This guide can be successfully used by school teachers and rehabilitologists.
Drawing Method
As mentioned above, Braille came up with a tactile reading method for blind and visually impaired people. This principle of obtaining information is based on a combination of six marks (cell). They are arranged in two rows of three characters. Points located in different order inside the cell form semantic units. The signs follow in a certain order: from the left 1, 2, 3 from top to bottom, and the right column also - 4, 5, 6.
14
2 * * 5
3 * * 6
So, in fact, Braille is formed. How to learn this method?
Technology
Braille device and stylus, typewriter - these are the devices that are used to write letters for the blind. A sheet of paper inserted between two metal or plastic plates of the fixture is clamped by them. The upper part has rows of rectangular windows, and the lower part has a recess corresponding to each window. The cell of the plate is similar to the Braille cell. The sign is formed due to the pressure of the stylus on the paper. Depressions in the bottom plate when pressed produce certain characters. Records are printed from right to left because the text to be played will be on the other side of the sheet. The column with the numbers 1, 2, 3 is located on the right side, and 4, 5, 6 - on the left. Braille typewriter consists of six keys. They correspond to 6 points in a cell. In addition, in the typewriter there is a shaft knob for line feed, as well as "backward" and "space". The keys with which the character is formed are pressed simultaneously. Thus, each pressure corresponds to a letter.
From the "space" on the right and left side are three keys. Consider how clicks are implemented. With the index finger of your left hand, press the key next to the "space". It represents the point 1. You need to click on the key on the left. The middle finger of the same hand draws point 2. To do this, press the center key. It follows after the one that corresponds to point 1. Nameless click on the last key. It corresponds to point 3. The fingers of the right hand press the keys on the opposite side. The first one, located immediately next to the “space”, corresponds to point 4. It is pressed with the index finger. The next one corresponds to point 5. It should be pressed with the middle finger. The last key corresponds to point 6. Click on it with a ring finger. Thus, when drawing both hands are involved. Spacebar is placed with the thumb. Typed text can be read without turning over a sheet of paper.
Conclusion
Mastering a braille system will require some effort. The mark, inattentively put in the wrong place, can change the numbers in the phone number, for example. But the effort spent learning the font for the blind will not be wasted. The main thing is to set a goal and strive for high results.