October PollResults: When Did You Learn Braille

Thank you to all of you who participated in last month's poll, your participation means a lot to me.

The poll was intended to find out if and when my blind and low vision readers learn braille. I've mentioned before that the NFB estimates that only 10% of all blind children are literate in braille. With that information I wanted to see how that number would compare to people who read my blog.

I am happy to report that out of the 49 people who voted, more then half of them were taught braille in school. Although this is a very small sample, what this says to me is that braille was likely taught more in the past. We know that 50 years ago the literacy rate was more then 50%, and it has quickly been declining ever since.

So the question is how do we get back to the numbers that we're seeing in my poll? I personally think that all children with vision problems should be taught braille in some form, but at this point there just aren't enough teachers to make this happen. I don't think though that means that we should accept the low literacy rate. In my opinion there are other options.

My poll indicated that nearly 20% actually taught themselves, so this is one option. For those who aren't interested in learning braille on their own though, they can take courses from The Hadley School for the Blind, or they can contact their local Commission for the Blind to request braille instruction. If you are a parent of a blind child then the NFB has the braille pals program which helps you and your child learn braille together.

These are just some options. I truly believe that we can increase braille literacy if we just choose to.

Here are the results in their entirety:

If you are blind or visually impaired, how did you learn braille?

I learned it in school: 32 votes 65%
I taught myself: 9 votes 18%
I've never learned braille: 8 votes 16%
Total number of votes: 49