Refreshable Braille displays

provide tactile output of information represented on the computer screen. A Braille "cell" is composed of a series of dots. The pattern of the dots and various combinations of the cells are used in place of letters. Refreshable Braille displays mechanically lift small rounded plastic or metal pins as needed to form Braille characters. The user reads the Braille letters with his or her fingers, and then, after a line is read, can refresh the display to read the next line.

Braille: Deciphering the Code

The Braille Cell

The picture below shows you how the dots are arranged in the braille cell for the first ten letters of the alphabet. Braille Alphabet

Braille does not have a separate alphabet of capital letters as there is in print. Capital letters are indicated by placing a dot 6 in front of the letter to be capitalized. Two capital signs mean the whole word is capitalized. Braille Numbers Braille numbers are made using the first ten letters of the alphabet, "a" through "j", and a special number sign, dots 3, 4, 5, and 6. Larger numbers only need one number sign. The comma in braille is dot 2. Expanding the Code

People sometimes ask if it would be easier to use raised print alphabet letters, rather than dots. When you read about Louis Braille, you'll learn that raised print letters were tried in the early 1800s before he invented braille. However, these letters were very difficult to read by touch, and writing them was even more of a problem. If you ever see an experienced reader's fingers gliding across a page of braille at 100200 words per minute, you will appreciate the genius of the simple six-dot system. Braille can be read and written with ease by both children and adults. It is truly an invention that is here to stay.

Louis Braille (1809-1852) Six dots. Six bumps. Six bumps in different patterns, like constellations, spreading out over the page. What are they? Numbers, letters, words. Who made this code? None other than Louis Braille, a French 12-year-old, who was also blind. And his work changed the world of reading and writing, forever. Louis was from a small town called Coupvray, near Paris. He became blind by accident, when he was 3 years old. Deep in his Dad's harness workshop, Louis tried to be like his Dad, but it went very wrong; he grabbed an awl, a sharp tool for making holes, and the tool slid and hurt his eye. The wound got infected, and the infection spread, and soon, Louis was blind in both eyes. All of a sudden, Louis needed a new way to learn. He stayed at his old school for two more years, but he couldn't learn everything just by listening. Things were looking up when Louis got a scholarship to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris, when he was 10. But even there, most of the teachers just talked at the students. The library had 14 huge books with raised letters that were very hard to read. Louis was impatient. Then in 1821, a former soldier named Charles Barbier visited the school. Barbier shared his invention called "night writing," a code of 12 raised dots that let soldiers share top-secret information on the battlefield without even having to speak. Unfortunately, the code was too hard for the soldiers, but not for 12-year-old Louis! Louis trimmed Barbier's 12 dots into 6, ironed out the system by the time he was 15, then published the first-ever braille book in 1829. But did he stop there? No way! In 1837, he added symbols for math and music. But since the public was skeptical, blind students had to study braille on their own. Even at the Royal Institution, where Louis taught after he graduated, braille wasn't taught until after his death. Braille began to spread worldwide in 1868, when a group of British men, now known as the Royal National Institute for the Blind, took up the cause. Now practically every country in the world uses braille. Braille books have double-sided pages, which saves a lot of space. Braille signs help blind people get around in public spaces. And, most important, blind people can communicate independently, without needing print. Louis proved that if you have the motivation, you can do incredible things.

Louis Braille
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

Louis Braille

Bust of Louis Braille by tienne Leroux (1836-1906), Bibliothque nationale de France 4 January 1809 Born Coupvray, France 6 January 1852 (aged 43) Died Paris, France Panthon, Paris Resting place 485046N 22045E Louis Braille (/brel/, French: [lwi bj]; 4 January 1809 6 January 1852) was the inventor of braille, a system of reading and writing used by people who are blind or visually impaired. As a small child, Braille was blinded in an accident; as a boy he developed a mastery over that blindness; and as a young man still a student at school he created a revolutionary form of communication that transcended blindness and transformed the lives of millions. After two centuries, the braille system remains an invaluable tool of learning and communication for the blind, and it has been adapted for languages worldwide.

Early life

Birthplace of Louis Braille in Coupvray

Braille was born in Coupvray, France, a small town located east of Paris. He and his three elder siblings Monique Catherine Josephine Braille (b.1793), Louis-Simon Braille (b.1795), and Marie Celine Braille (b.1797)[1] lived with their mother, Monique, and father, Simon-Ren, on three hectares of land and vineyards in the countryside. SimonRen maintained a successful enterprise as a leatherer and maker of horse tack.[2][3]

As soon as he could walk, Louis spent time playing in his father's workshop. At the age of three, the child was toying with some of the tools, trying to make holes in a piece of leather with an awl. Squinting closely at the surface, he pressed down hard to drive the point in, and the awl glanced across the tough leather and struck him in one of his eyes. A local physician bound and patched the affected eye and even arranged for Louis to be met the next day in Paris by a highly-respected surgeon, but no treatment could save the damaged organ. In agony, the young boy suffered for weeks as the wound became severely infected and spread to his other eye.[3]a Louis Braille survived the torment of the infection but by the age of five he was completely blind in both eyes.[4] His devoted parents made great efforts quite uncommon for the era to raise their youngest child in a normal fashion, and Louis prospered in their care. He learned to navigate the village and country paths with canes his father hewed for him, and he grew up seemingly at peace with his disability.[3] His bright and creative mind impressed the local teachers and priests, and he was encouraged to seek higher education.[2][5]

Education
Braille studied in Coupvray until the age of ten. Because of his combination of intelligence and diligence, Braille was permitted to attend one of the first schools for blind children in the world, the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris.[6][7] The school was an underfunded, ramshackle affair, but it provided a stable environment for blind children to learn and associate together.[8]
The Hay system

The children were taught how to read by a system devised by the school's founder, Valentin Hay. Not blind himself, Hay was a committed philanthropist who devoted his life to helping the blind. He designed and manufactured a small library of books for the children using a technique of embossing heavy paper with the raised imprints of Latin letters. Readers would trace their fingers over the text, comprehending slowly but in a traditional fashion which Hay could appreciate.[9] Braille was helped by the Hay books, but he also despaired over their lack of depth: the amount of information kept in such books was necessarily small. Because the raised letters were made in a complex artisanal process using wet paper pressed against copper wire, the children could not hope to "write" by themselves. So that the young Louis could send letters back home, Simon-Ren provided him with an alphabet fashioned from bits of thick leather. It was a slow and cumbersome process, but the boy could at least trace the letters' outlines and write his first sentences.[10] The handcrafted Hay books all came in uncomfortable sizes and weights. They were laboriously constructed, exquisitely delicate, and greatly expensive to obtain: when Hay's school first opened, it had a total of three books.[9] Despite their drawbacks, Hay promoted their use with zeal: the books presented a new and handsome system which could be readily comprehended by those with eyesight. Certainly no better method yet existed for the blind to read, and the books seemed to the sighted to offer the best achievable results. Braille and his schoolmates, however, could detect all too well the books' crushing limitations.[9] Nonetheless, Hay's well-intentioned efforts still provided a breakthrough achievement the recognition of the sense of touch as a workable strategy for sightless reading. Hay's only personal limitation was that he was "talking to the fingers [with] the language of the eye."[11]
Teacher and musician

Braille read the Hay books repeatedly, and he was equally attentive to the oral instruction offered by the school. He proved to be a highly proficient student and, after he had exhausted the school's curriculum, he was immediately asked to remain as a teacher's aide. By 1833, he was elevated to a full professorship. For much of the rest of his life, Braille stayed at the Institute where he taught history, geometry, and algebra.[6][12] Braille's ear for music enabled him to become an accomplished cellist and organist in classes taught by Jean-Nicholas Marrigues. Later in life, his musical talents led him to play the organ for churches all over France. He held the

position of organist in Paris at the Church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs[13] from 18341839, and later at the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.[14]

The braille system

Braille was determined to fashion a system of reading and writing that could bridge the critical gap in communication between the sighted and the blind. In his own words: "Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we [the blind] are not to go on being despised or patronized by condescending sighted people. We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals and communication is the way this can be brought about."[12]
Origins

Alphabet chart for English braille. The letter "W" is not part of the French alphabet, and was only appended to the additional letters with diacritics.

In 1821, Braille learned of a communication system devised by Captain Charles Barbier of the French Army. Some sources depict Braille learning about it from a newspaper account read to him by a friend,[15] while others say the officer, aware of its potential, made a special visit to the school.[4][16] In either case, Barbier willingly shared his invention called "night writing" which was a code of dots and dashes impressed into thick paper. These impressions could be interpreted entirely by the fingers, letting soldiers share information on the battlefield without having light or needing to speak.[11] The captain's code turned out to be too complex to use in its original military form, but it inspired Braille to develop a system of his own.[17][18]
Design

Braille worked tirelessly on his ideas, and his system was largely completed by 1824, when he was just fifteen years of age.[6][12] From Barbier's night writing, he innovated by simplifying its form and maximizing its efficiency. He made uniform columns for each letter, and he reduced the twelve raised dots to six. He published his system in 1829, and by the second edition in 1837 had discarded the dashes because they were too difficult to read. Crucially, Braille's smaller cells were capable of being recognized as letters with a single touch of a finger.[6] Braille created his own raised-dot system by using an awl, the same kind of implement which had blinded him. In the process of designing his system, he also designed an ergonomic interface for using it, based on Barbier's own slate and stylus tools: by soldering two thin bars across the slate, he created a secure area for the stylus which would keep the lines straight and readable.[6]
Musical adaptation

The system was later extended to include braille musical notation. Passionate about his own music, Braille took meticulous care in its planning to ensure that the musical code would be "flexible enough to meet the unique

requirements of any instrument."[19] In 1829, he published the first book about his system, Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged for Them. Ironically this book was first printed by using the raised letter method of the Hay system.[20][21]

Later life

"Louis Braille" in braille

In 1839, Braille published details of a method he had developed for communication with sighted people, using patterns of dots to approximate the shape of printed symbols. At the same time he gave assistance to his friend Pierre Foucault who was working on the development of a device that could emboss letters in the manner of a typewriter. Foucault's machine was hailed as a great success and was exhibited at the World's Fair in Paris in 1855.[22] Although Braille was admired and respected by his pupils, his writing system was not taught at the Institute during his lifetime. The successors of Valentin Hay, who had died in 1822, showed no interest in altering the established methods of the school,[20] and indeed, they were actively hostile to its use. Dr. Alexandre Franois-Ren Pignier, headmaster at the school, was dismissed from his post after he had a history book translated into braille.[23] Braille had always been a sickly child, and his condition worsened in adulthood. A persistent respiratory illness, long believed to be tuberculosis, dogged him, and by the age of forty, he was forced to relinquish his position as a teacher. When his condition reached mortal danger, he was taken back to his family home in Coupvray, where he died in 1852, two days after he had reached the age of forty-three.[6]

Legacy

Bust of Louis Braille at his birthplace

Through the overwhelming insistence of the blind pupils, Braille's system was finally adopted by the Institute in 1854, two years after his death.[20][24] The system spread throughout the French-speaking world, but was slower to expand in other places. In the Netherlands though, braille was already taught at the institute for the blind in Amsterdam at least as early as 1846.[25] At the first conference in Europe of teachers of the blind in 1873, the cause of

braille was championed by Dr. Thomas Rhodes Armitage and thereafter its international use increased rapidly. By 1882, Dr. Armitage was able to report that "There is now probably no institution in the civilized world where braille is not used except in some of those in North America."[26] Eventually even these holdouts relented: braille was officially adopted by schools for the blind in the United States in 1916, and a universal braille code for English was formalized in 1932.[27] New variations in braille technology continue to grow, including such innovations as braille computer terminals; RoboBraille email delivery service; and Nemeth Braille, a comprehensive system for mathematical and scientific notation. Almost two centuries after its invention, braille remains a system of powerful and enduring utility.[28]
Honors and tributes

Braille's childhood home in Coupvray is a listed historic building and houses the Louis Braille Museum.[4] A large monument to him was erected in the town square[29] which was itself renamed Braille Square.[30] On the centenary of his death in 1952 his remains were moved to the Panthon in Paris.[31] In a symbolic gesture, one of Braille's hands was left in Coupvray, reverently buried near his home.[6] The 200th anniversary of Braille's birth in 2009 was widely celebrated throughout the world by exhibitions and symposiums about his life and achievements. Belgium and Italy struck 2-euro coins, India struck a 2 rupee coin, and the USA struck a one dollar coin to mark the event.[32][33][34][35]

Bust and bas relief monument in Coupvray.

Braille's tomb in the Panthon, Paris.

Postage stamp (East Germany, 1975): Braille has been honored on stamps worldwide.

Dollar coin (USA, 2009), issued for Braille's birthday bicentennial.

Euro coin (Belgium, 2009), issued for Braille's birthday bicentennial.

Ferritic stainless steel 2 coins (India, 2009) issued for Braille's birthday bicentennial.
In popular culture

Because of his accomplishments as a young boy, Braille holds a special place as a hero for children, and he has been the subject of a large number of works of juvenile literature.[36] Other appearances in the arts include the American TV special Young Heroes: Louis Braille (2010);[37] the French TV movie Une lumire dans la nuit (2008);[38] and the dramatic play Braille: The Early Life of Louis Braille (1989) by Lola and Coleman Jennings.[39]

Publications

1829. Procd pour crire les Paroles, la Musique, et le Plain-chant au moyen de points (1829) 1837. Procd pour crire les Paroles, la Musique, et le Plain-chant au moyen de points (2nd edition) 1838. Little Synopsis of Arithmetic for Beginners 1839. Nouveau procede pour representer des points la forme meme des letters, les cartes de geographie, les figures de geometrie, les caracteres de musiques, etc., a l'usage des aveugles (New Method for Representing by Dots the Form of the Letters Themselves, Maps, Geometric Figures, Musical Symbols, etc., for Use by the Blind) (decapoint)[1]

Notes

^ a: It remains uncertain which eye was actually struck first. Most accounts of Braille's accident omit reference to left or right. Braille's American biographer J. A. Kugelmass states definitively that it was the left eye, but his fanciful account of Braille's life cannot be entirely accepted.