Thanks to Susanna Halme, we’re taking another look at a topic that kept us busy a few months back.
Susanna has picked out some interesting additions from an older article and is kindly sharing them with all of us here at Braille 200.
Our deepest thanks from both heart and brain goes to Susanna today!
What happens in the brain of a braille reader?
In his 2018 article, Ron Kupers explores how the brain works during braille reading. The interaction between the sense of touch and the brain’s structure enables the development of strong braille reading skills. Braille is different from printed text because it is read by sequential touch: the reader moves their fingers across individual dots and braille cells, identifying meanings letter by letter. This is unlike visual reading, where letters and words are recognized more quickly and as a whole.
According to Kupers, the sense of touch in the fingers can become extremely sensitive in people who are blind from birth and experienced braille readers. Tactile sensitivity improves through regular practice and reading. For example, in sighted people, finger sensitivity typically decreases with age, but this doesn’t happen in blind braille readers. Changes have also been found in the somatosensory area of the brain in people who are blind from birth, especially in fingers that are used actively—they develop better discrimination abilities.
Kupers’ research shows an interesting finding: braille reading is not just a tactile process. Even though the sense of sight is not used, the visual cortex of the brain is also active during braille reading. This suggests that the visual cortex can be involved in language processing and understanding meaning. In one case, a person who was blind from birth lost the function of their visual cortex due to brain damage and could no longer read braille, even though their sense of touch was still working. So, reading braille seems to rely on smooth cooperation between somatosensory information and the visual cortex.
According to Kupers, braille literacy develops through a combination of many factors, such as phonological awareness, short-term verbal memory, and tactile precision. Early exposure to braille in blind children greatly supports the development of these skills. However, the brain is adaptable, and it is possible to learn braille later in life as well. This research provides strong neuroscientific support for why braille learning should be actively encouraged at all ages.
Although Kupers’ neuroscience-based analysis is not entirely necessary for my own humanistic approach, I believe it’s still useful to understand what kind of process braille reading is. When we understand what happens in the brain, we may also better understand people’s personal experiences with the challenges of reading braille. If my research shows that people who find braille difficult are mostly those who learned it at an older age, the explanation may lie in how the brain works and adapts—and in the fact that finger sensitivity tends to decline with age.
Reference:
Kupers, Ron 2018: Braille Reading and the Blind Brain. In: Braille Teaching and Literacy: A Report for the European Blind Union and European Commission.
Greetings from Finland,
Susanna Halme
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