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# INTRODUCTION

1. PARAMETERS OF THE STUDY
2. SOURCES, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO PART 1
3. THE BRAILLE CODE
4. TERMINOLOGY

## 1. PARAMETERS OF THE STUDY

Once it was recognised that those who were impaired in one or more of the senses could have the remaining senses trained, special programmes became possible and literature became available following this trend. Some examples follow.

Pritchard's "Education and the Handicapped, 1760-1960" (1963) is wide ranging, both in terms of history and in the variety of impairments for which there has been educational provision. The work is divided into three periods: experiment - institutional education; transition - school board classes; growth - advances in education. The book provides a valuable overview and includes helpful lists of official papers, books, and articles.

Hurt's "Outside the mainstream" (1988), details the growth of educational provision for children with special needs. His work includes references to the report of the Warnock Committee (1978), which among other suggestions recommended an initiative to bring handicapped children into the mainstream of education.

Chapman's "Visually impaired children and young people" (1978), is more specific, for within the range of visual impairment she includes some short references to braille, and in more detail some of the recommendations of the Vernon Report (1972) concerning the teaching of braille based on a survey carried out by Williams in 1971.

All these publications were concerned with special education, whereas the present work studies in detail the embossed codes which are the means to education, employment opportunities, and leisure reading and writing by blind people. References to the history of literacy of the blind have occurred from time to time in general works on living conditions and education emanating from America. So far, there has been no detailed evaluation of the history of embossed codes, nor of the many researches carried out in endeavours to find ways of making the braille code easier to read and to write. This work attempts to fill that gap.

## 2. SOURCES, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO PART 1

When a new embossed code was evolved its author explained its raison d'être, the elements of which it was composed and the rules of usage. Such primary sources are invaluable, but in extolling the virtues of their codes some authors have tended to be slightly biased in their opinions. Evaluation has therefore taken into account contemporary writings, the apparent success or failure in use and findings of modern research.

Nearly all these primary sources are still available in libraries and museums concerned with the blind, but embossed examples of the earlier codes have become more rare. Since its first adaptation from the French version into the English language the braille code has undergone several changes. Complete official versions of these changes are available as well as proceedings of conferences, and access has been granted to the official committee minutes of the British and Foreign Blind Association followed by those of the Uniform Type Committee later known as the Braille Authority of the United Kingdom. Together they cover the years between 1868 and the present day.

## 3. THE BRAILLE CODE

Braille is the embossed code most in use today and is the best so far devised for touch reading, but it is constantly being reassessed in endeavours to make it easier to read and to write. This motif can be recognised throughout these pages and reasons are given where appropriate for such changes seeming necessary. It is not a cryptic code, but is another kind of orthography, conveying the same meanings in a punctiform medium, but its configurations bear no resemblance to the shapes of inkprint letters. Any literary material, including foreign languages, can be transcribed into braille, there is a shorthand version, and mathematics, music and chess moves may also be adapted to the medium.

The characters of the braille code are formed from a matrix of dots, known as a cell, which are arranged in two parallel columns of three dots. Sixty-four patterns (26 = 64) are possible; 63 are used for signs and the remaining one which has no dots is used to separate words. The characters are read from left to right and are arranged in lines analogous to the visual reading display, and format devices such as headings and the use of paragraphs are also used. In comparison with inkprint braille is a very slow medium and it covers a lot of space and so books are bulky.

Two versions of the English literary code are used at present. In Grade 1 each sign corresponds with a print symbol. More competent braillists usually prefer to use a contracted form known as Grade 2. Because only 63 configurations are possible, most of them have multiple meanings assigned to them according to their positions in words and so many rules are necessary; their uses are different in many respects from those of inkprint, and so a terminology has evolved which needs to be known for a complete understanding.

## 4. TERMINOLOGY

Cell: the 3 x 2 matrix, which is the basis of braille, is arranged as follows:

Character: any one of the 63 combinations of dots that can be contained within the braille cell.

Letter Sign: a sign representing a print alphabet letter.

Composition Sign: a braille sign which has no direct print equivalent.

Grade 1 Braille: Grade of braille in which each print symbol has a single braille equivalent.

Grade 2 Braille: Braille in which all the rules of contractions are observed.

There are several methods of contracting braille and by their use recognition of groups of letters can be enhanced, space is saved and the rate of reading is increased:

Alphabet Word Signs: signs representing letters can also represent words if they appear with a space on either side of the character; to aid memory most of them represent specific words starting with the same letter, e.g. C for Can, H for Have, V for Very.

Group Sign: a contraction which represents a group of letters.

Composite Contraction: a contraction consisting of more than one cell.

Sequence: two or more words appearing without an intervening space.

Shortform: an abbreviated word which has some letters omitted. There is a specific set of such words which may be shortened in this way.