Fewer than 10% of blind in U.S. can read Braille

BALTIMORE (AP) — Jordan Gilmer has a degenerative condition that eventually will leave him completely blind. But as a child, his teachers did not emphasize Braille, the system of reading in which a series of raised dots signify letters of the alphabet.

Instead, they insisted he use what little vision he had to read print. By the third grade, he was falling behind in his schoolwork.

“They gave him Braille instruction, but they didn’t tell us how to get Braille books, and they didn’t want him using it during the day,” said Jordan’s mother, Carrie Gilmer. Teachers said Braille would be “a thing he uses way off in the far distant future, and don’t worry about it.”

That experience is common: Fewer than 10 percent of the 1.3 million legally blind people in the United States read Braille, and just 10 percent of blind children are learning it, according to a report to be released today by the National Federation of the Blind.

By comparison, at the height of its use in the 1950s, more than half the nation’s blind children were learning Braille. Today Braille is considered by many to be too difficult, too outdated, or a last resort.

Instead, teachers ask students to rely on audio texts, voice-recognition software or other technology. And teachers who know Braille often must shuttle between schools, resulting in haphazard instruction, the report says.

“You can find good teachers of the blind in America, but you can’t find good programs,” said Marc Maurer, the group’s president. “There is not a commitment to this population that is at all significant almost anywhere.”

Using technology as a substitute for Braille leaves blind people illiterate, the federation said, citing studies that show blind people who know Braille are more likely to earn advanced degrees, find good jobs and live independently.

One study found that 44 percent of participants who grew up reading Braille were unemployed, compared with 77 percent for those who relied on print. Overall, blind adults face 70 percent unemployment.

The most recent report pulled together existing research on Braille literacy, a method that its authors acknowledge was less than comprehensive. The 10 percent figure comes from federal statistics gathered by the American Printing House for the Blind, a company that develops products for the visually impaired.

The federation also did some original research, including a survey of 500 people that found the ability to read Braille correlated with higher levels of education, a higher likelihood of employment and higher income.