Concept in Definition ABC

For centuries blind people could not have any system that allowed them to read. This circumstance caused the impossibility of accessing culture and knowledge. This situation changed radically when in the 19th century Louis Braille devised a system of literacy that allowed the blind to read and to write using your fingertips.

The braille alphabet

This alphabet starts from a simple but very ingenious idea: that the fingertips touch a combination of six points in relief, as each of the possible combinations corresponds to letters, figures, as well as punctuation marks and signs mathematicians.

Initially this proposal was thought so that the blind could read, but in a short time two novel advances were made: handwriting using a ruler and awl and the adaptation of the traditional typewriter to the system braille. From the arrival of the computing At the end of the 20th century, the blind had the possibility of operating a computer through a keyboard braille. These advances have been a

revolution for the blind to read and write autonomously. Thanks to Braille, children without vision have been integrated into the education system conventional.

Historical origin

Louis Braille was born in 1809 in Coupvray, a small town very close to Paris. At the age of four he suffered a domestic accident that caused him total blindness in both eyes. Despite the limitation he attended the school normally.

Although he was an intelligent student, his blindness did not allow him to access all the knowledge. For this reason his parents decided to send his son to the first school for blind children founded in Paris when he was ten years old.

In that center, young Louis lived with about a hundred children who lacked vision. One day the students were visited by Charles Barbier, a military man who had invented a system of relief writing designed so that soldiers could read at night and without using the light. Barbier's idea was based on the relationship between reliefs and the phonetics of words.

Barbier's invention was a motivation for the young Louis Braille to go to work on a more elaborate system adapted to the blind. At age 16, Louis Braille laid the foundations for the alphabet that bears his name.

When he dropped out of school, he became a teacher for blind children. However, his poor health led to his death at age 41.

Photos: Fotolia - Meinlp / Andrew Adams

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