Contracted Braille

I found out today I passed my first braille class.   Did I mention I was taking a class?   My daughter’s braillest from last year told me about an online class that teaches braille to sighted people.  It was a well-organized and, in my opinion, fun class.   Fun possibly in that I was learning the “secret code” my daughter has been learning for over two years.   She could be my teacher and we were both enjoying doing things in braille together.

There are two classes though, and I’m fairly certain I’ve passed the easier of the two.   The next class is UEB Contracted Braille.   UEB (Unified English Braille) is the standard for braille.   Uncontracted braille is where every single word is written out letter by letter.    As sighted people, we read fairly quickly in part because our eyes can see the word pattern and read the word as a whole.   We don’t read out every letter at a time and then put them together as a word.  

When you read braille as a visually impaired or blind person, and I mean read braille as in use your fingers to feel the dot patterns, you can only feel one letter at a time.   You can feel them very, very quickly, but you still have to pass everything under the pads of your fingertips.

Contracted braille is sort of like shorthand.  It’s taking common things like the suffixes, ‘ed’ or ‘ing’ and having a shorter symbol represent them.   It makes reading much faster.

I’m a little nervous though.   I hope my daughter will still be willing to teach me.   She’s made me laugh recently when I’ve asked her something, knowing I should know what the braille symbol is, but I can’t remember.   She’ll say, “I already told you that!”   She, never forgets anything.

The Big Boy Update:  Every year at my son’s school there is a photo album with a page for each child.   There is a narrativ'e from the child, introducing themselves, their family, things they like, etc.   This year is the first year my son can read and write well enough to write his own narrative.   He’s going to work on it over the next few days for his homework.   I’m interested in what he’s going to say.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Dhruti texted me after my daughter’s therapy session yesterday.   She said: “She asked me today to narrate some stories of when I wasn’t feeling good and have to go to an office at the school. She asked me when I was younger did I have to ever go to an office when something bad happened. She listened to some of my stories and was almost about to talk about her stories and then stopped her self. I didn’t push.”   Then today, Chelsea told me after music therapy that something similar had happened.    This is a good thing.   It sounds like my daughter may be getting ready to start talking about difficult things.    She’s patently refused to talk about or even acknowledge that you’re talking to her about them up to now.   She won’t be able to process and ultimately accept her blindness until she can work through it.