Interpretation and Production for Sight Impaired Children

Peter Lumley & Adrian Farnsworth

A Braille book produced by the RNIB called "Birthday Presents" illustrates the current problem the lack of illustrations causes in books produced for tactile learners. The text has been transcribed into Braille but the pictures, which form the major part of the printed book, have simply been omitted. Consequently the first page: "This feels soft. What is it?" lacks, not only the appeal of the printed book, which includes a large colourful picture of a Teddy-Bear alongside the text, but also a large part of the content. One way around this is to include, alongside the book, a collection of objects which relate to the text. So with this particular book a Teddy-Bear, a Book, a Beach Ball and a Roller Skate could be kept in a plastic bag with the book.

Objects are an obvious place to start when introducing tactile representation as they provide non-sighted learners with actual things they can handle alongside a text. Handling real objects helps children to develop accurate concepts of the things in books and also helps them to relate the book to their own experience.

It is not always possible to provide actual objects for the child to feel, perhaps the object is too big, too distant, imaginary or is alive. We therefore need to develop a way of representing these things for the child in a way that will help them to develop accurate concepts. Describing pictures is one option but it is far better for the child, wherever possible, to have a model or a toy or a texture used to represent it. Through this the child not only learns about the thing itself but also begins to learn that a thing can be represented by something other than itself A child reading or being read a book about Paddington could be provided with a toy Paddington to feel while experiencing the story. The child would need to understand that the toy wasn't actually Paddington but they could learn a lot about him by handling the toy the fact that he is a bear and he wears wellingtons, a duffel coat and a hat. Later the child could begin to use smaller, tabletop models, to represent things in books. It is important when choosing these that the amount of tactile information they provide is assessed. A solid lump of plastic is little use to a non-sighted learner whereas a model with moving parts and tactile textures can provide them with lots of useful information. A particularly good example of this kind of toy is the Playmobile set of Zoo Animals. The crocodile in this set of animals for example has a rough textured back, moving legs, tail and head, a mouth which opens filled with pointed teeth. Through handling this toy children can build up a useful idea of a crocodile.

The use of real textures is also a useful progression from real objects. After a child has handled a small fury animal then it is quite easy for them to associate the feeling of fur with the fury animal itself The conceptual leap involved in moving from object to texture, although significant, is fairly straightforward and easy for a child to understand. Through using textures it becomes possible to include these tactile representations in the books themselves alongside the text. For example a kitten represented by a piece of fur or a glass jar by thick acetate. These textures can be developed into simple shapes which can then be used to represent things in the story such as a big and small circle to represent a tractor.

Clearvision Books, in which the text is Brailled onto acetate and integrated into the original print version of the book, provide a useful resource for children learning Braille alongside sighted children. Through this scheme the same books are available for use by both print users and Braillists at the same time although as there are no tactile pictures and non-sighted children must rely on descriptions by sighted peers to gain access to these. In a recent development the Clearvision project is developing a series of tactile picture books called "Fingerfun". In these books everyday objects have been thermoformed and are included alongside a print text, which can be read to the child, and a single Braille word for the child to read themselves. The thermoforming of everyday objects provides a direct link between the real object and its representation thereby providing an important intermediate step in the process of interpreting tactile symbols.

Eventually children will need to move on from these fairly concrete representations of things to a more symbolic and abstract one. The medium most widely used for the production of these kind of tactile images is "Swell Paper". "This is a type of heat sensitive paper, impregnated with micro capsules of alcohol... Black and white artwork is photocopied on to the swell paper. When passed through a heat machine the dark areas absorb heat, burst the micro capsules causing the image to raise up." RNIB Product Guides pg. 147. An important feature of this kind of paper is that the image produced is both tactile and visual so sighted people can easily access them alongside the tactile learner. Masters for these pictures can be produced on a computer using a drawing package like "Corel Draw" and text can be included using either the RNIB Moon or Braille fonts.

To begin with children can be given story books which include tactile pictures, textured borders, Braille or Moon and print. These books can be shared with a parent or an older brother or sister and provide opportunities for discussion and exploration alongside the storytelling experience. The child will also have the opportunity to learn some concepts about books, e.g. that we read a book front to back and left to right, that the cover of a book contains information about it, that pictures and braille are different, that braille and print are made up of letters and words and tell the story. They may also begin to enjoy the feel of certain textures and recognise specific tactile symbols. To help them develop the specific tactile skills, needed to interpret these pictures, a wide range of supplementary activities are required. Such activities should include ones designed to:

develop the child's ability to discriminate between increasingly similar textures, shapes and lines;

teach the systematic scanning of the whole page;

teach a versatile way of tracking from left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top, etc.;

develop the child's understanding of the relationships between the things represented;

teach symbol recognition and discrimination.

 

It is important, especially during the beginning stages, to ensure that any tactile symbols introduced are clearly linked to the objects they represent. In the book "Mooncats", produced for young children learning Moon, not only can the children handle a toy cat and dog and relate these to the tactile pictures but they can also use them to act out the story which is almost exclusively based on the use of prepositions.

Consistency in the use of symbols to represent specific objects is also important if children are to recognise them in different contexts. Critical features should be obvious to touch and clearly differentiated from those used to represent similar things e.g. the tail of a cat could always point up whereas the tail of a dog always down. The first tactile picture books

produced when adapting the "One, two, three & away" reading scheme also included the use of textures to represent colours. Again if these are used consistently children will be able to use them to 'recognise' a small range of tactile colours which can be used in these pictures.

Tactile learners also enjoy producing their own models and pictures using a range of different modelling, construction and collage materials. They also enjoy 'drawing' freely on German Film and can use the same critical features, used in their story books, to produce their own recognisable tactile pictures. To make these pictures accessible and attractive to their sighted peers they can easily be scanned into a computer where colour can be added. Children can also take pleasure in producing pictures on a Perkin's Brailler or using Wicky Sticks and some even ask for tactile colouring books which can be used in conjunction with scented crayons or felt tipped pens. Filling the outlines of the shapes to be coloured with a texture adds to the enjoyment this activity and provides useful feedback to the child.

I look forward to a time in the future when the use of tactile pictures is the norm rather than the exception and all adapted materials include, where appropriate - as some concepts cannot be conveyed using 2D tactile graphics, a tactile representation of the pictures. The 1996 SATs Reading Comprehension Booklet "Donkey's" is visually very attractive. The cover has a photograph of a donkey on it clearly focusing the reader's mind on donkeys and providing lots of additional information that may help in the reading task. The first section of the booklet contains a sequence a lively, humorous pictures which quickly set the scene for the story and provide continuous support with the reading. The second section contains information about donkeys and is interspersed with a whole range of visual material which is not only an additional source of information but also breaks up the text making skimming and scanning for specific bits of information, to answer the questions, so much easier. Oh, and the adapted booklet for tactile users, just the Braille text and nothing more.