Teaching braille letters, numerals, punctuation, and contractions to sighted individuals

Abstract

Braille-character recognition is one of the foundational skills required for teachers of braille. Prior research has evaluated computer programming for teaching braille-to-print letter relations (e.g., Scheithauer & Tiger, 2012). In the current study, we developed a program (the Visual Braille Trainer) to teach not only letters but also numerals, punctuation, symbols, and contractions; we evaluated this program with 4 sighted undergraduate participants. Exposure to this program resulted in mastery of all braille-to-print relations for each participant.

Assessing generative braille responding following training in a matching-to-sample format

“…The current study extended Putnam and Tiger () in several ways. First, we specifically assessed the untrained emergence of braille‐to‐print character transcription, braille‐to‐print sentence transcription, print‐to‐braille transcription, and braille reading following exposure to MTS training.…”

“…Scheithauer, Tiger, and Miller () conducted a follow‐up study with 81 undergraduate students and found similar results. Putnam and Tiger () extended this research by developing and evaluating a program that taught not only braille letters but also the braille equivalents for numerals, punctuation symbols, composition signs, and contractions for common words and letter combinations (a total of 254 stimuli) using the same matching‐to‐sample (MTS) format. All participants met mastery criteria on each of the six training modules, with training time of less than 1 hr for each of the modules.…”

“…Of those more important generative repertoires, only the emergence of braille reading was assessed in Putnam and Tiger (). After training, participants demonstrated very low levels of emergent braille reading.…”

“…Thus, generative responding can result from MTS training, although this emergence was limited in Putnam and Tiger (). This limited generative responding was likely negatively influenced by at least two features of the training program.…”

Acquisition and generative responding following print‐to‐braille construction response training with sighted learners

“…This study differs from Putnam and Tiger (), and other previous research in this area, by training the print‐to‐braille relation and requiring a construction response, in lieu of targeting the braille‐to‐print relation and requiring a selection response (Putnam & Tiger, , ; Scheithauer & Tiger, ; Scheithauer et al ;). Putnam and Tiger () evaluated the emergence of generative repertoires following braille‐to‐print MTS training and found that although other important braille repertoires emerged, the levels of generative responding were too low to be useful.…”