lauren@vortex.com
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2017 22:38:36 -0700
via NNSquad https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/technology-seeks-to-preserve-fading-skill-braille-literacy/2017/11/01/f4d1a072-bec4-11e7-9294-705f80164f6e_story.html
For nearly a century, the National Braille Press has churned out millions
of pages of Braille books and magazines a year, providing a window on the
world for generations of blind people. But as it turns 90 this year, the
Boston-based printing press and other advocates of the tactile writing
system are wrestling with how to address record low Braille literacy.
Roughly 13 percent of U.S. blind students were considered Braille readers
in a 2016 survey by the American Printing House for the Blind, another
major Braille publisher, located in Louisville, Kentucky. That number has
steadily dropped from around 30 percent in 1974, the first year the
organization started asking the question.