Is Braille Outdated in Tech-Age ?

Acc. to survey, only 10 percent of people without sight, today read braille, compared with about half in the 1950s. 

Reasons for the decline are

• advanced text-to-speech technology,
• and the expense of producing braille books. 

People talk about braille dying and that it's outdated. But, is it really so?

If we take a pause and think, then, learning braille is akin to a sighted person learning their alphabets. Would one stop learning to read and write just because technology can read and show us information? Most likely not.

Technology has brought with it many wonderful ways of accessing information without braille, but that does not mean that braille is now obsolete. Tactile reading can do a lot for us:

• Reading in general stimulates the brain. Language processing leads to higher brain development in those who read.
• Ability to read brings with it a certain independence. Sure, an app could read to us, but there’s much more value in being able to choose our own reading material and read at your own pace.
• Those who can read can also write. Literacy is more than just consuming; it also allows us to create.

Do we HAVE TO choose between Braille and technology?

Maybe we DON'T HAVE TO.

We need both – together.

Braille remains the foundation for learning. Technology is NOT replacing braille. It can help us increase the availability (of) braille, making it easier to produce and less expensive. Braille is a much a necessary skill for children who are blind. And now, with the innovations in technology, we can look forward to transforming the old-fashioned dots-on-paper to new and really fun ways of experiencing the tactile dots for reading our favorite news. 

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