Print or Braille? I Use Both!

Print or Braille? I Use Both!

Future Reflections Special Issue on Low Vision READING
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Print or Braille? I Use Both!
by Charles Brown
Reprinted from Future Reflections, Volume 14, Number 1, Winter/Spring 1995
From the Editor: Charlie Brown recently retired after serving for more than thirty years as legal counsel for the National Science Foundation. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the National Federation of the Blind and president of the NFB of Virginia. Although this article was written nearly twenty years ago, its message is still important for today's parents and teachers.
As a leader in the National Federation of the Blind, I am an enthusiastic participant in our Braille literacy campaign. I know how important Braille is to me, even though I have a good deal of usable vision. Kids with low vision are primary victims in today's crisis in Braille literacy. Yet, though Braille is important to me, I also use print. I use it a lot.
Even totally blind folks need to know print. Print is all around us--there are raised letters and numbers on everything from kids' blocks to restroom doors. Our language assumes a knowledge of the print alphabet. Like sighted folks, blind folks need to know what a T intersection is, or an S curve, or a U turn. Blind folks need to know why O is used synonymously with the number 0 (in Braille zero corresponds with the letter j). How does Zorro make the "mark of the Z" on the chest of his victims?
My totally blind friends routinely sign their names, make out checks, and type letters to their friends. I strongly believe that the schools must teach blind kids to read, write, and touch-type (keyboard) print. Print is part of living in the world, even if you never see a word of it visually.
Many blind people, like me, can see print. Does knowing Braille mean I should ignore what I can see? Nonsense! My office is full of print, and I use it every day.
I've always been able to read ordinary sized print when there is decent lighting, provided I hold the page right up to my face. If I were in school today, there is a good chance that I would not be taught Braille. My print skills would probably be judged as "good enough." Fortunately, when I started school in the Fifties, my parents and the others responsible for my education realized that I could not comfortably read print fast enough or long enough to compete as a true equal with sighted students my age. So I also learned Braille, and I competed pretty well in school. I did well enough to get through Harvard College and the Northwestern University Law School--using mostly Braille, tape recordings, human readers, and my typing skills.
Just after I graduated from law school, the closed circuit television (CCTV) was invented. I got one of the first models, and I have used CCTVs in my career as a lawyer ever since. With a CCTV, I can read print faster, longer, and more comfortably than I could before this device came along.
I use the CCTV in my office to read all the papers and files that come across my desk, to read the cases and articles in books and periodicals in my bookcases, or the items I check out from the law library. I also use the CCTV when I fill out forms and prepare handwritten notes.
As so many other working Americans do these days, I constantly use a computer. Some blind folks use speech output devices to gain computer access, but I use screen enlargement software. I use my computer to write legal opinions and memoranda. I use it to handle my electronic mail and for much more. When it became time for me to become computer literate, I had a real leg up on most of my sighted colleagues. I was already an excellent touch typist.
A number of screen enlargement software packages are on the market, and most of them are pretty inexpensive. Many members of the NFB use screen enlargement programs. One of the great fringe benefits of being a Federationist is the ability to check out each other's packages and exchange demos. We talk about color contrasts, letter shapes, cursors, Windows compatibility, etc. I need to know what's out there in order to know what will work for me. It's almost as if no two "partials" see alike. What works fine for me may be frustrating or even useless for someone else.
When I leave my office, Braille looms larger in my briefcase and in my life. I use a Braille slate to take notes at meetings. It is one of the fastest, least disruptive, and most efficient note-taking devices I know--at least for me. I like to get periodicals in Braille because, unlike print, I can read Braille rapidly and comfortably anywhere--on the bus, for instance.
I use recorded materials, too. For example, I get the American Bar Association Journal on tape (produced by the National Association of Blind Lawyers, a division of the NFB).
Like most lawyers, I often give prepared oral presentations. For one thing, each year I teach about thirty seminars on government ethics rules to employees of my agency. I design the lesson plans, write the case studies and other handouts, and conduct the classes. The participants get the materials in print, but I Braille all of my materials, outlines, quotes, slides, etc. This way I can have these items literally at my fingertips. I cannot credibly do the essential teaching part of my current job using print. I'd hate to think of trying to teach while hiding behind a CCTV or holding papers up in front of my face. Eye contact and rapport count so much in effective and convincing teaching! That's why I use Braille.
I use Braille outlines for my speeches (including any quotations I'll be using). Braille is also my primary medium for agendas when I chair meetings. I cannot afford to let a struggle with print get in my way and distract from my message.
Sometimes I need to make a very formal address, and I write it out completely in Braille. This way I can concentrate on my delivery without worrying about phrasing. I can focus on voice modulation, gestures, and eye movements. Remember, lawyers are supposed to be convincing.
As a lawyer, church leader, and civic activist, I use Braille when it is the best medium, and I use print when it works best. It all seems so obvious and second nature to me that I am shocked when so-called experts talk loosely about the "choice" between print and Braille. Did learning Braille impair my ability to learn and use print? Not at all! Some people even say that learning both print and Braille is comparable to learning two languages. No way! It's all English. I can fully attest, as I recall my struggles with four years of high school French, that learning both Braille and print is nothing at all like learning two languages.
Parents often come to me looking for advice about the education of their children. The advice I give is pretty simple. Their children need, I tell them, to find alternative techniques for reading, mobility, and the like. On the whole, these techniques need to be as effective as those used by sighted peers if parents want their kids to be prepared to compete on terms of equality. Braille and print are just two parts of the total mix.
Print or Braille? It's a silly question not worth asking, as far as I am concerned. Most blind kids need to learn both.

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