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The New York Times reported that the decline of written language has become a reality for only the blind, as fewer and fewer visually impaired people learn Braille, many preferring instead to rely upon synthetic voice technology and computer-screen-reading software.

In fact, a report released last year by the National Federation of the Blind, an advocacy group with 50,000 members, said that less than 10 percent of the 1.3 million legally blind Americans read Braille. The report found that while approximately half of all blind children learned Braille in the 1950s, today that number is as low as one in 10.

Increased number of blind children born with additional physical or mental handicaps, often the result of premature birth. And a large percentage of these students were partly sighted. There is a wonderful article explaining this so well in the Arizona Republic June 1, 2006 . The reporter interviewed Arielle Silverman President of the Arizona Association of Blind Students.

Posted in: Braille