Have you ever wondered who created Braille? Or how blind people learn to use this unique form of language in their everyday lives? If so, you should definitely tune into our webchat where we have a very special guest from Royal Blind dropping in to talk about the work they do to enhance the lives of blind people in the UK.

As well as telling us about the first ever National Braille Week Richard Hellewell will also be discussing the unique exercises used in pre-Braille lessons. These include separating dried foods such as peas and macaroni to differentiating shapes and popping bubble wrap to strengthen fingers. All of these small steps soon add up and before long people are reading and typing in the simple six-cell system that makes up Braille.

You’ll also get a chance to look at some exclusive footage from a visit to the Royal Blind School – a school that is specifically designed for blind and visually impaired children. Pupils can board or simply come on a day-to-day basis, and whilst they are there, they will learn how to read Braille. Although the school is based in Scotland children living in the UK can attend if they get funding from their local authority. This offers young blind people across the UK an unparalleled opportunity to develop their skills.

You’ll also pay a visit to Braeside House, a residential home for pensioners who are blind and visually impaired and the Scottish Braille Press, which prints Braille for companies and visually impaired people throughout Britain. So why not submit a question and find out a bit more about this very worthy cause?

H: Jayne Constantinis
R: Richard Hellewell, Chief Executive Royal Blind

H: Hello and welcome to the Good Causes Show, I'm Jayne Constantinis. Now this is the very first National Braille week, we're celebrating the 199th birthday of Louis Braille and looking forward to the celebrations to coincide with the 200th anniversary of his birthday, and so we're going to talk today about the implications of living without sight, but also how blind and visually impaired people can achieve a degree of independence in their lives, and joining me to talk about those things is the chief executive of the charity Royal Blind, Richard Hellewell,

R: Hello

H: Richard thanks very much for coming in to talk to us

R: Ok

H: And of course it's a live show so if you've got a question for Richard then just type it in the box on your screen, press send and give us your name and we'll get through as many as we can during the course of the show. Let's begin with a little bit of background about Braille and how it came to be invented?

R: That's right, I think everybody has come across Braille as being a kind of system of raised dot that is all rather a mystery. The pattern, in essence, is fairly simple. Let me just show you on this example that I've got here. There are different combinations of dots, all on a pattern of six, like the six that you find on a dice or on a set of dominoes. And they progress from one to the next so as to make them reasonably easy to learn. Just by using six positions there on a six chart, you have the opportunity of having 63 different symbols just within that, so you see here the first 26 used for the individual letters, but there are also other ones that serve as punctuation marks and others that will serve as mathematical symbols, or whatever. And then it gets more complicated and there is Grade 2 Braille which contracts some of the more common words into one or two or three symbols, which makes the whole thing take up less space on the page

H: Yes like and, that, with, by – those sorts of words?

R: That's right. The whole system was dreamed up by Louis Braille, early in the nineteenth century, as a teenager which makes it yet more impressive really that this came about. He was at a blind school at the time, he was born sighted but lost his sight through an accident in early life, and while at blind school they heard a talk from a soldier, who had – they had a system at that time of passing messages in the dark along the line so as not to give the position away, which was a system of dots, but it was rather more complicated than the Braille that we know, and it actually didn't work terribly well, but he saw this – well saw it

H: Yes, yes

R: He was told about this, felt what was going on there and thought “I could do something with this” and hence we have Braille which is the same system that has carried on until now, and is still very much live and is still very much the access that so many blind people have into reading, writing, and mathematics

H: And how important is it in the life of a blind or visually impaired person?

R: It makes a huge difference, there have studies about comparing the progress of blind people who have Braille and blind people that don't, they've shown that it's the ones that have learnt Braille that have succeeded in gaining employment in later life, which really is illustrative. I think it's the gateway to proper, full literacy, and I think anybody who, you know you would obviously realise that learning to read has been the plank on which the rest of learning continues, and so those who have learnt Braille have had an insight that those who have not been able to learn Braille have missed. Not to say that there's nothing for those who don't learn Braille because there are other new technologies around using computers that will read things to you, but that's not – even then – quite the same as reading as I'm sure anybody appreciates

H: And does every blind or you know sufficiently visually impaired person, learn Braille?

R: No I think it doesn't quite suit everybody, it's not that straightforward to learn. I think a lot of people who lose their sight in later life will find it more difficult, just as anybody learning a new language

H: Yes

R: Finds it more difficult the older you are to grasp a whole new language, particularly if it's written in completely different symbols. It's much easier when you're young

H: And in fact Jim has sent a question in which is very much along those lines – “is learning Braille especially difficult, does it take a long time to learn?” so you've sort of answered that

R: I think it's learning to read, you know so it's that much more straightforward if it is the medium in which you are learning to read as a youngster than it is when you're older

H: But you wouldn't discourage people who lose their sight later in life to try?

R: No, much to be gained, absolutely. Much to be gained

H: Yes

R: But a lot of people nowadays who are blind, a large proportion of them are those who have lose their sight through the macular degeneration and other conditions that older people experience at the age of 75, 80 or whatever, and by then it really is quite difficult

H: Yes. Bethany wants to know “at what age should children start learning Braille? Is it something I can help my child learn before he starts school?” - in the way that we all try to teach our children the alphabet before they go to school, should she be teaching her child the basics of Braille?

R: There may be something to be gained. I think one thing that – and you'll see this on the short film that we're going to show – at the Royal Blind School we prepare children before they start to learn Braille, we prepare the strength of their fingers, and their capacity to feel with their fingers before they even then start to de-code the symbols

H: Right

R: And so that's clearly something that can be started at quite a young age. You'll see – I'll just show you on this example here, we've got some peas and we've got some macaroni, and the children are asked to sort the peas from the macaroni by touch, and tha's just a starting point for beginning to use touch as a way of differentiating one thing from another

H: I hadn't appreciated that it was so difficult to actually – yes

R: Even basic, such a basic thing as bubble wrap – pop paper, bubble wrap, we get the child just to have the bubble wrap in front of them and just to pop the bubbles and it just strengthens the fingers

H: Ok, let's – you've very nicely thank you introduced the first piece of film that we've got, let's have a look at it

Video footage

………..”left – and can you do to the right – good girl”

H: So we saw obviously some children learning there, but also the Scottish Braille press making manuscripts, tell me a little bit more about their work?

R: Yes we produce at the Braille press 6 million sheets of Braille per year, it's quite a big output and we're the major Braille producer in Scotland, and we employ people with a visual impairment to help in that process, which is excellent to be able to do. We produce commercial Braille for banks and for building societies, for example statements and standard letters as well as books, novels – we have a line of novels called the Thistle novels, and we produce three or four magazines as well which are of real use to those people who receive them

H: And how wide is the range of material that's available in Braille, you know if I wanted to read Pride and Prejudice, can I just easily get it?

R: You could probably get hold of Pride and Prejudice, but I would have to say the range isn't as big as we would like it to be and it certainly isn't as broad as the Braille readers at large would like it to be. It should really be possible to get hold of any book in Braille but regrettably it isn't

H: Is it something that's improving?

R: It is something that has been improving but we're concerned that it may be standing still and certainly there is a broad body of opinion among the sight impaired that there should be more availability of material

H: Well of course you say among the sight impaired but there's been some research hasn't there –

R: Yes

H: Out recently which is really interesting that something like 80% of people thought that sight was the most important sense. That's not that surprising I suppose, but also a huge number of people thought that there wasn't enough, there weren't enough facilities for sight-impaired people

R: Indeed. Yes we were very impressed by that result that 76% I think of people across the UK felt that the businesses weren't doing enough for accessibility, for people with blindness, with visual impairment

H: Interesting. Now we've got a question in from Phil who wants to know “is Braille the same in every language?”

R: Braille isn't exactly the same in every language, but for those languages that use the same letters as English it will be the same symbol for the same letter. Now for other languages there will have to be different systems of translation, so it does become quite different then. I'm not an expert in that but what I can say is Braille of course was originally developed in French

H: Of course

R: And one result of that is actually that the W is misplaced, that the W doesn't fall in sequence with the rest because in the early 19th century there was no W in French, so it had to be invented later out of sequence

H: Wow

R: But that's illustrative of how Braille has adapted for use by different languages across the world

H: Yes thanks for that question Phil and remember we are live so if you want to ask Richard a question just type it in and send it to us with your name. Penelope's done just that, and she says “my son whose 18 months old was born blind. I'm trying to get his siblings involved in the learning process with him. How can I make learning Braille fun for them all? At the moment he's just learning about touch.” So he's only 18 months old, learning about touch, that's what you were saying earlier, the peas and –

R: Yes indeed

H: Is that – is she doing the right thing?

R: Yes indeed, and there are children's books available and reading scheme books that have large print opposite Braille, and that's a really good way of bringing involvement by siblings, so that they're reading the same thing and the Braille is there to touch. I think it's the second piece of film that we'll see has a child reading a book that is Braille with embossed illustrations which is good to have, but increasingly I think that these books that bring in both large print and Braille on the same book are very useful

H: Well you've nicely introduced the second film, so let's have a look at that, this is children learning – the actual learning process isn't it? Ok

Video footage

“What was the word again?”

“She is six”

“She is”

“Dad – d-a-d. I played in my room”

“Can you remember what that contraption was that you just learned today? It was a really hard one?”

“Had good fun”

“I had good fun”

“I played with my dolls. I played in my room. My doll is called Amanda. I played catch with my doll. I had good fun.”

“That's great”

“It's a Braille note which is basically like a computer but instead of a Braille display – instead of a screen you've got a small Braille display at the bottom which, if I turn it on, you can read it – because the dots will just go up and down. And you might think the buttons are wee, this is basically like a Brailler, you know if you look at a Brailler you've got the same kind of keys. Just almost like a mainstream school we move to different classes, so we've got like today we've got foreign time then after that we've got art and music, then we have maths or English, and we just move through different things basically, different lessons. And in school, some people go home but I'm residential here, and that's fun – residential's good because you got – there's loads of care staff and things, and they give you loads of activities at night and that's really good as well. For drama, for some people now they're actually getting ready for a show, they're actually having rehearsals and things for a Christmas show they're going to have. What they normally do in this show is they'll normally pick anything, any story at all and they'll just change it like make jokes in it, they make it funny, they make it fun for people to watch, and they make it so other people can understand, like for instance if we can't see the stage, they try and make it simple for us to understand, like just in case we're going to have to watch it, yes, they make it so we can understand it without anyone keep telling us what's happening.”

H: Interesting

R: Yes

H: Tell me a little bit more about the machine that the young boy was working with?

R: It's an example of the new technologies that are coming in all the time, but I'm particularly impressed by that one because it's been developed to actually enable the Braille reader to receive computerised information, so there's the row of dots there at the bottom of his keyboard there that actually raises in sequence through his internet page that he's reading, so that he can see that with his fingers

H: Wow that's fantastic

R: It's marvellous, yes

H: Because in fact I was going to ask you about new technologies you know, so much information these days absorbed via the internet

R: Yes

H: And it's a question that Sharon's sent in too – “how are you able to keep up with new technologies like the internet, is this something that's still accessible to the visually impaired?”

R: Yes I think that's a challenge for us all and to keep pressing forward, and the rate of progress is terrific on these, and of course, sight – a number of sight impaired people can use a QWERTY and ordinary QWERTY keyboard as well

H: Yes

R: And these – for people with all kinds of disabilities, the internet is marvellous for gaining access to information

H: And is the pace of making it accessible to visually impaired people keeping up with the pace of change, because I mean you're saying in terms of books really not moving fast enough

R: In terms of books, in terms of volume it's certainly not moving fast enough. I think what we need to do is just keep the pressure and keep investing in the technology and not let it get left behind. I think in terms of interface with Braille but also in terms of large print, because a lot of people with sight impairment have some peripheral vision, have some reduced vision of some kind for whom easy ways of showing a screen that shows the print very big is also enormously useful

H: We saw in that clip the school that you run for visually impaired children, tell me a little bit more about that

R: Yes they Royal Blind School in Edinburgh has two campuses, you saw pictures in one of the two campuses there. It's been in operation for many years now and remains at the forefront of excellence in teaching young children with a sight impairment. The purpose being to equip them for as independent a life as possible and to set them up to move forward into the future and to fulfil some of the ambitions that the lad that you saw in the film has, quite realistic ambitions now I think. We cater for a wide variety of need, a number of the children that come to us have a variety of other disabilities along with the blindness, because often children have lost sight through other, with a combination of other disabilities that have come from premature birth

H: Right

R: And some of those children require a lot of support, and the campus that you've not seen in these films includes some of those children where they're in need of physiotherapy as well as special input on visibility

H: And I'm assuming that you receive donations for the very good work that you do?

R: We certainly do, the school is funded by the Scottish government and by the local authorities by the fees that they pay, it's just one of the activities that they have at Royal Blind, but we are able to help equip the school that much better through being a voluntary organisation, and independent as we are

H: Just paint me a very short picture if you can of what life is like nowadays for a blind or severely visually impaired person. How much better is it now than it was in Louis Braille's day?

R: I think it's much better in many ways because society is used to being an inclusive society now, there is an expectation and I think that's grown very much within the last 20 years or so. There is an expectation that people with a disability are part of society and are along with everybody else, and therefore there is an expectation on the part of blind and disabled people that they will be included and they quite rightly advocate for themselves and we encourage them very much in that and invite the whole of society to be alongside those with disabilities rather than simply doing things for them

H: Yes

R: Or being an – in a more patronising way, it's really all about inclusion and it's about empowerment

H: Great well let's home the good work continues, it's been fascinating to talk to you, thanks for coming in to the studio

R: Thank you

H: And if you'd like to know more about National Braille Week or any of the issues that we've been talking about today then you can log onto royalblind.org and there's a telephone number as well if people would rather ring isn't there? Which is?

R: 0131 229 1456

H: Thanks very much. And if you want to know more about National Braille Week you can go to nationalbrailleweek.org. Thanks very much for watching, see you again soon. Bye for now

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