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CBA newsletter / le bulletin

Volume 15, No. 1 - January 2010

President’s Message

Hello members,

This has been an exciting but challenging year for CBA. As you will learn from information in this newsletter, Braille 200 was celebrated by CBA in several different ways. I was very fortunate to be in Paris to participate in the celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille. I will never forget the emotional experience of being in his birthplace, Coupvray, touching the raised print of yester year and agreeing with Louis that Captain Barbier’s code just didn’t fit comfortably under the finger.

As you may be aware, the Canadian Braille Literacy Foundation is recovering from the economic downturn and not providing funding for projects at this time. The CBA executive and other members have been searching diligently for grants to carry on the valuable work of our organization, but have so far had no success in obtaining funding. However, activities still continue:

The Tactile Graphics Committee, along with the Braille Authority of North America, is continuing to work on finalizing the production of the manual. We are all waiting for it to be published and looking forward to when that will happen.

The Teaching and Learning Committee has completed some very valuable research with technical experts who have shared their opinions and thoughts about UEB. There is a blog available at http://bnobel.wordpress.com/ which has content that reviews the development of UEB and the experience of implementing UEB in Australia. CBA also funded the purchase of several titles produced in UEB which are available electronically and in paper braille from the CNIB library. CBA has provided materials in UEB that teachers of the blind and visually impaired have introduced to some students and some comments have been collected. UEB research will continue, but at our annual meeting on April 23, 2010 in Toronto, members will have the opportunity to vote about whether or not to recommend UEB for implementation in Canada. I hope you will be able to come to the AGM to make your voice count. If you can’t attend in person, you have the opportunity to vote by proxy.

There was an article in the New York Times recently that downplayed the importance of braille. While I know that I am “preaching to the choir,” I remain convinced that as long as digital technology does not replace print, neither will it replace braille. When I think about the countless ways I use braille in my daily life and work, I just can’t imagine functioning efficiently without it. Braille is dynamic! Braille is alive! Braille is here to stay.

Respectfully submitted,

Betty Nobel

CBA President

A Note from the Editor

Once again it is my pleasure to edit this edition of the CBA newsletter. Certainly 2009 was a very special year with many local, national and international events celebrating the 200^th birthday of Louis Braille. With this in mind it seemed fitting to share with you some very personal experiences and reflections on the momentous events of this past year. I thank Betty Nobel, our current CBA President, and Euclid Herie, the former President and CEO for CNIB, both of whom attended the Paris Braille conference, for sharing their experiences and insights. I am very pleased that Joseph Sullivan from Duxbury Systems gave permission for us to include the paper he presented in Paris. Joseph is the Chair of Committee 2 of the Unified English Braille Research Project under the auspices of the International Council on English Braille. I urge you to read Joe’s paper that provides new insights into the goals and process to unify the English Braille Code. Jen Golden, a CBA board member, kindly shares with us her odyssey with the slate and stylus as well as reports on the CBA sponsored Canadian School Braille Challenge that many school age children participated in across our country this past year. And for those of you who may enjoy some ideas to crank up your students, or your, creative juices I thank Kim Charlson from the Braille and Talking Book Library at Perkins for granting permission to share her Braille Drawing article. Finally, I invite you to respond to the “Listening to Braille” January 3^rd, 2010 article in the New York Times. What are your thoughts? We would love to know!

CBA is very committed to promoting a sense of community amongst its members, facilitating an exchange of ideas and promoting communication. We are therefore initiating a bimonthly electronic news bulletin which will include information items, letters to the editor and responses from members to news stories. If you wish to be part of the distribution list please be sure that we have your current email address. If you do not wish to receive these news bulletins please contact me awadsworth@prcvi.org or via snail mail at Anne Wadsworth, c/o PRCVI, #106 – 1750 West 75 Ave., Vancouver, BC, V6P – 6G2.

Many thanks!

Anne

Six Dots That Changed the World: In Remembrance of Louis Braille (1809–2009)

by Euclid Herie

(Address to the7th World Blind Union General Assembly, Geneva, Switzerland August 2008 and the Braille 1809 – 2009 Conference, Paris, France January 2009.)

Mr. Chairman, honoured guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

A few years ago, on a fine May morning, I found myself sitting on a bench in a small garden behind a modest, even humble, dwelling.

I could hear birdsong and felt a gentle breeze touching my cheek. The air was redolent of freshly cut hay and the heady fragrance of roses, lilacs and the bright orange poppies that grow along the hedgerows in that part of the world.

I had come to this place, La Maison Natale de Louis Braille, as many have done before and after me, on a pilgrimage to learn more about this man who is a hero to all of us. I wanted to feel closer to him, and perhaps even touch something that he had once held in his own two remarkable hands.

Born on January 4, 1809, in Coupvray, France, a village about 36 miles east of Paris, Louis Braille was a contemporary of two other notable men – Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. All three were born within weeks of one another, and all three – in their own way – changed the world. In the way of many talented people, Lincoln and Darwin achieved greatness with their signature work later in life. But Louis Braille had developed and refined his ingenious code by the time he was just 15. Do you find that as astonishing as I do?

Today, as we honour his place in history by marking the 200 years since his birth, we celebrate his great gift to humankind and pay tribute to his creative genius. It is my privilege to speak on behalf of every blind person who has found liberation through literacy.

The Braille cell is deceptively simple: an arrangement of six tiny raised dots – two across and three down, creating a possible 63 patterns – that’s all. But it is so much more than that.

Not only does the Braille code work in most, if not all, languages, with their complexities of punctuation marks, contractions, phonetics and accents, but it is also versatile enough to be used in literary, musical, mathematical and computer applications. And, despite passionate disagreements over the variations and use of the literary and mathematical codes, the fundamental Braille system has endured, giving people who are blind a universal means of written communication.

So clever, and of such profound importance.

And if its beauty lies in its simplicity, the ingeniousness of Braille lies in its timeless versatility.

Despite the huge technical advances of the past 200 years, most especially in our own time, Braille has withstood all these changes and remains the communication vehicle of choice for most people who are blind. Braille has bridged the chasm between ancient prejudice and darkness on one side and enlightenment and freedom on the other.

With the arrival of the digital age, many people, both blind and sighted, predicted the death of Braille in all its forms. I’m here to assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. Technological advances, however, have been useful to us in the way Braille is created. We have moved on from the early days of creating brailled text with a slate and stylus, to mechanical Braille writing machines, to now being able to publish brailled documents using computers and high-speed presses. And web-based digital Braille has created unimaginable opportunities for producing Braille in every home, schoolroom or workplace, in virtually any community. All that is required is a web-access device and some electronic or mechanical means of embossing the Braille dots.

But let’s think for a moment what Braille really means.

In the broader context, Braille is a great deal more than a six-dot writing system gifted to the world by its architect, Louis Braille, nearly two centuries ago. Braille is literacy that has brought independence and empowerment to the blind of the world, through knowledge and lifelong learning. It has transformed lives, lifted millions out of poverty, enabled countless numbers of intelligent, hard-working people to perform responsible, meaningful work, contribute to their communities, provide for their families and enjoy rich, fulfilled lives.

From my time in Coupvray, I came to know Louis Braille as an intellectually and musically gifted man who enjoyed getting away from the hustle and bustle of Paris to restore and refresh himself in the tranquility of the French countryside of the early nineteenth century, surrounded by his friends and family.

He was not famous when he died.

Well, he’s famous now.

His birthplace is not only a museum but a World Heritage Site; his image has been replicated on commemorative coins, statues and portraits and has been featured on postage stamps around the world.

In 1952, fully 100 years after his death, his remains were moved from the pastoral churchyard of his beloved Coupvray to the Pantheon in Paris. Here, he rests alongside France’s most highly esteemed intellectuals, including Voltaire, Rousseau, Marat, Victor Hugo and Émile Zola. At the commemoration service, one observer remarked that, “we, the blind, are as indebted to Louis Braille as mankind is to Gutenberg.”

The decision to move Braille’s remains, against the wishes of some members of his family and the Coupvray community, was not without controversy. For this reason, his precious hands remained behind at the original burial site, entombed in a simple urn.

And now, his life’s great work lives on into its third century.

In the first century of Braille usage, few blind adults had access to it, because literacy was not extended to the poorer classes. In that regard, we note how fortunate young Louis was to have been sent to school in Paris. Indeed, blind children, both male and female, in many countries, had better access to education through schools for the blind than did their sighted contemporaries.

By the dawn of the second century of Braille, it was becoming more available to individuals of all ages, in most countries, and now, in its third century, we await to see what will come. What we do know is that teaching and learning Braille is not something that is done for its own sake, but for the sake of what wondrous doors it will open for those who use it.

As I was writing this, I searched for a powerful and visible tribute to Louis Braille and his life’s great achievement. Suddenly it came to me that we already have one. Reflecting on my first visit to the famed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, I remembered the inscription on the inlaid brass ring surrounding the tomb of its brilliant architect, Sir Christopher Wren, who lies buried beneath the great dome. “If you seek his memorial,” the inscription reads, “look about you.”

And so I say to you now that if you would seek a memorial to Louis Braille, look about you. Whenever a blind person reads, two hands gliding gracefully across a page of brailled text, there is the living memorial to Louis Braille.

An accomplished, educated and literate man, Louis Braille would have wanted nothing more.

And of course, he will always live on because his invention bears his name. That, I think, would have astounded him.

I wish he could have known in his lifetime the significance of his great gift to humankind. I wish he were here today so we could thank him in person and let him know, in some small way, the enormous success his invention became.

Millions of lives.

Two hundred years.

Six magic dots.

I ask all of you here today to please stand, and may our applause be heard across the three centuries of Braille.

Louis Braille, we thank you from our hearts and minds.

Paris Conference January 2009 – A Personal Diary

By Betty Nobel

Friday January 2.

Sharon, my friend and travel companion, came to pick me up at 5:45 pm. Although it was icy, we made it out to the airport with no problem.

Our flight took off on time, and we reached Chicago without incident. We did a lot of walking around the airport between flights and I bought a pillow. The flight to Paris was delayed for an hour, but once in the air there was a head wind helping us along although it was bumpy sometimes. Sharon enjoyed looking at the map and she often told me our speed altitude and location. I read At Home in Mitford and really enjoyed it.

Saturday January 3

When we arrived, we had a bit of trouble finding where to go to get our luggage and go through customs, but we finally figured it out. We took a taxi to the hotel with two ladies from Georgia, (not the US), a 50 euros fare.

We liked the hotel immediately. Our room was small but had everything we needed. I immediately noticed the lovely, high, European bathtub. We, in keeping with French custom, left our key at the front desk each time we left the hotel. Soon we were off to the little grocery store mentioned in the reviews and bought oranges, yogurt, bananas, cheese and a delicious baguette. After this lovely feast and a wee nap we were off to the Eifel tower. Sharon couldn’t stop marveling at its beauty. We went very high up and she got some good pictures.

Sunday January 4

The next day we took the metro to Les Invalides but we didn’t make it in time for the mass. Instead, we went off to the Musee D’orsay where Sharon saw and described some wonderful impressionist paintings. I was able to touch some sculpture until asked not to do so. After lunch in an outdoor café in the Tuilerie gardens, we went on to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, Venus De Milo and other paintings. Subsequently we joined Euclid Herie at a small reception followed by dinner. We especially enjoyed meeting Ramona, John, Robin and Elizabeth Rose from Australia as well as Euclid’s son Neil and his wife, and the new director of services and operations for CNIB in Quebec. .

After dinner we walked to Notre Dame Cathedral for the organ concert. The cathedral is majestic. The organist was fabulous! All of the pieces were by blind composers. It was truly amazing to hear so many different sounds could come out of one magnificent instrument—from the loud and strident to the soft strains of a flute. The organist played for almost an hour and a half. What a day!

Monday January 5

Traveling to the UNESCO building turned out to be very easy. From the metro station across the street from the hotel we could go right to the venue. Once through the UNESCO security check we enjoyed some delicious coffee and small pastries. The opening sessions of the conference included presentations from the deputy mayor of Paris, who is blind, members of the sponsoring agencies and David Blunket, a former Minister in Great Britain. David told the story of receiving an unreadable Braille briefing for a presentation he was to provide to the Prime Minister. His staffers were unaware that the language for the new embosser had to be set – the default was Swedish! Following David’s presentation Euclid Herie spoke passionately about Louis Braille and his amazing contribution to us all. Everyone stood and applauded for Louis Braille!

The conference displays were rather disappointing with little new to see. The conference bag, however, was very nice and included a slate and stylus, keychain and calendar. It was gratifying that all the tickets for conference events were in Braille.

There were many panel sessions at the conference. Pierre Ferland, from Quebec , spoke about transcribing Nemeth material into French. Others addressed the use of refreshable braille and braille on drug product labels now mandated by the European Union.

Feeling tired we skipped the next sessions on tactile graphics and went back to the hotel for a nap. We slept until 8 pm! That evening’s dinner was Crepes on the street followed by a little shopping. It was so cold, snowy and icy that we didn’t stay out long.

Tuesday, January 6

After our usual breakfast of yogurt and oranges we were off again to UNESCO where we met up with Graham Cook, a teacher of the visually impaired from Dawson Creek BC, and Cay, Anne and Cay’s small companion. Colleen. After the first session we were off to meet with the Canadian ambassador. The taxi driver gave us an unrequested tour of Paris making us late! The ambassador, Mark Lortie, however was very gracious. One of the things Ambassador Lortie mentioned was the poor accessibility provisions in France. He seemed very interested in Braille and our plans to celebrate the bicentenary in Canada.

On the way back to UNESCO on the metro I had a nasty fall. My leg went down between the platform and the train. I simply didn’t step out far enough even though Sharon said “far across”. Fortunately Sharon pulled me up before the train started. The result was a great big bruise on my shin and some scrapes…it could have been much worse!

The informative afternoon sessions addressed braille unification and braille in developing countries. Sharon was off on a boat cruise and visit to the post office while I stayed at the conference. Later we attended the Valentin Hauy Association’s inauguration of their new media library. The library will be totally accessible with books in all formats that can be reviewed by browsing the shelves or using the online catalog. We enjoyed examining the small, old pipe organ as well as the appetizers and champagne!

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a Lebanese restaurant for dinner. We discovered that it was cheaper if you ate outside of a restaurant. If you entered the restaurant and sat down it cost more!

Wednesday January 7

The beginning presentation on Braille and scientific research was very informative; other presentations on Braille in the workplace and the school less so. Subsequently we were off to visit Sainte Chappelle. Unfortunately it was closed, but we did see the Palais de Justice. Lunch was in a very tiny restaurant that served crepes. When we got up to leave, Sharon folded up the table and everything went flying. The money for the tip disappeared!

The closing sessions back at the conference were most enjoyable, particularly the speech by William Roland. We took the bus along with other conference participants to the gala banquet. We sat with some new French friends, including Christoph whose girlfriend is blind and works as a rehab teacher in a hospital in Paris. The meal was foie gras with fig marmalade, monkfish, cheeses, and a wonderful chocolate mousse cake. Yum! Blind musicians from Egypt provided entertainment. A lovely evening!

Thursday, January 8

For me, this was the best day of the trip! Along with other conference attendees, we went to Coupvray, the birthplace of Louis Braille, by bus. The well outside the house where Louis Braille was born is still there. In the cold, living room of the house there is an old spinning wheel, a very low concrete sink, a fireplace with a bread oven, an adjacent recess for making cheese and a dresser for dishes. We examined a footwarmer and a bedwarmer. A replica doll of Louis Braille sits on the alcove bed. The big picnic table in the centre of the room was where the family ate their meals.

In Louis Braille’s father’s reconstructed workshop downstairs we were able to examine some of the harness-making tools and horse collars. There was an old chair at the workbench and many of the materials were originals. Upstairs is where Louis slept when he came to visit his family as an adult. Here we were able to touch some very old embossed print books and examine the machine Louis used to write to his friends in print. We examined a sample of Barbier’s code. Almost everything could be touched. Outside, we examined a sculpture of Louis hands on a keyboard and a book. It is so fitting because Louis Braille’s hands remain in the small Coupvray cemetery while the rest of his remains are in the Pantheon!

Back in Pairs and after lunch at the Valentin Hauy Association, Sharon and I went with a guide to the Pantheon. In the vault, we listened to some biographical information about Louis Braille. A large wreath adorns the wall just below Louis’ tomb. I was provided with a Braille copy of the speeches delivered when Louis’ remains were placed there and I listened to an audio version. We learned about the Pantheon’s history and the others buried there.

Subsequently our guide took us to Sainte Chappelle but we were too late! Not wasting a moment we decided to take a chilly cruise along the Seine with a good commentary. We finished off our day with dinner at a Latin quarter restaurant that included French Onion soup and crepes with chocolate and banana filling. Yum!

Friday January 9

Friday morning we were off on a tour bus to Versailles. I was able to touch some of the windows and other ornamentation in the Dauphine’s apartments. The audio commentary of the tour guide was very good although the earpiece only fit in the left ear, so we kept very close to the guide. We walked through some of the gardens and Sharon showed me how the hedges were pruned. It was sunny and clear with snow on the ground. Unfortunately we were rushed for time.

Back in Paris we did some more shopping. I bought some perfume and Sharon bought two scarves. In the afternoon we finally made it to Sainte Chappelle. At the conference as part of the display was a three dimensional model of this building and some tactiles of the different windows. I was lent a book with tactile drawings and Sharon described the windows and other features. It was very beautiful with the sun shining in through the windows. It was nice to be able to enjoy the tactiles and imagine some of the windows. The climb up to the second floor was very twisty and narrow. The building was built in the 13^th century.

Later, we grabbed a hot sandwich and then went back to the hotel to pack. This week was so full of activity. Sharon expressed it well—she was the eyes and I was the mouth because I couldn’t see and she couldn’t speak French. The combination worked very well!!

Unifying Braille: Louis Braille's Vision in Tomorrow's World

by Joseph E. Sullivan

(Editor’s note: Joseph Sullivan is the President of Duxbury Systems, Inc. and the chair of Committee 2 of the Unified English Braille Research Project under auspices of the International Council on English Braille. This paper was prepared for presentation at the Celebration of the Bicentenary of Louis Braille's birth at UNESCO Headquarter, Paris, organized by Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles and l'Association Valentin Haüy in January 2009.)

We are here to honor a man, Louis Braille, whose invention has been a vital force for the removal of barriers, and hence for unification. In this paper, I hope to make a case for the greater unification of braille itself—not only as an exercise that is possible, as in unified codes such as Unified English Braille (UEB) that have already been implemented, but also as a development that is highly desirable and consistent with Louis Braille’s original vision. Indeed, often the best way to achieve unification seems to be to go back to Louis Braille’s work and learn as much from it as possible.

On one level, we think of braille as removing the barrier created by an inability to see print—and certainly it is that. Today, braille has become the primary means of true literacy for blind people everywhere, and for virtually every written language throughout the world. And when you remove barriers to communication, you remove barriers between people. Thanks to braille, blind people have a means to access and create every kind of knowledge and are thereby able to participate fully in society. Bringing people together is therefore the essence of what braille is about, or in other words a central goal of braille is to unify.

But is braille itself unified? And as a practical matter, can it be? We need to acknowledge that inevitably there will be some differences between braille systems designed for different natural languages, mainly because of the obvious fact that, with only sixty-three distinct dot patterns, it is not possible to represent all the letters and other components of the world’s many print writing systems in one system with single-cell assignments all around. So we naturally have different basic codes for Russian and French, for example, and still another for Greek, and so on. Even languages based upon the same alphabet, such as French and English, have other aspects, such as the frequency of accents, that make consistency between codes difficult, at least, to reconcile with the need for practical efficiency in general reading. However, even allowing for these unavoidable differences, when actual braille systems in use are considered, a great deal of needless diversity is evident.

One type of diversity, and one that is particularly hard to understand, arises when people who speak the same language, but who happen to live in different countries, use different braille signs for the same print sign. An instance of this phenomenon is that the ordinary plus sign, even when used in a nontechnical context, would be transcribed into braille quite differently in England and North America.

A second kind of diversity can and usually does arise when specialty codes, designed for efficient treatment of technical subjects such as mathematics or computer programs, must be used to express notation that is commonly encountered within general literature. It is not that having specialty codes is a problem in itself—on the contrary, they are quite useful for specialists, a point to which we will return. But when the general literary code makes no provision for handling even simple mathematics or computer notation, you can have several different braille signs being used for the same print sign within the same text. Currently in North America, for instance, there are three ways to express the dollar sign, depending on which code is considered applicable to the current context.

A third kind of diversity arises when technical notation that is common throughout the print world—that is, notation that is independent of language—must nevertheless be represented in braille in a language-specific way, even when a specialist code is used. A glaring example of this is mathematics. In print, mathematical notation is international. A sighted American mathematician, even if he does not understand Russian, can read and understand the mathematical notation as written by a sighted Russian mathematician. The same would not be true for their blind colleagues, because the Russian and American braille codes for mathematics are quite different.

All three kinds of diversity raise obvious barriers to communication—barriers that Louis Braille sought to remove. Surely he would want us to do better!

These three kinds of diversity give rise to three opportunities to realize Louis Braille's vision more fully: in unification of codes between countries speaking the same language, in the enabling of "literary" codes to express technical notation—which we could call "vertical" unification, and finally in the unification of specialist codes across languages.

My own involvement with unification began in early 1991, when I was asked to participate in the development of what has come to be called Unified English Braille, or UEB. The goal of that project, which started in North America, was vertical unification—to provide a way to express technical notation such as math and email addresses, which increasingly are found in general literature, in a way that was consistent with the general braille code and that did not require “switching” to separate specialist codes. By removing the need to learn a specialist braille code for even the most basic appreciation of such technical subjects, UEB sought to remove a barrier to learning. The general braille code for English would no longer be “in a box”—capable of expressing only “literary” text according to a narrow and outdated concept of what “literary” could be. Instead, UEB would be an extensible writing system fully parallel and equal to print, just as capable of expressing any symbol in any sequence, with clarity.

Clarity, we felt, required that the braille needed to be unambiguous. That meant, for example, that the traditional English Braille sign for the slash, which could also stand for the contraction “st”, had to be changed (unless the contraction itself was abolished, which in this case was judged to be the less desirable change). It is not that the ambiguity was very often a problem for readers in conventional literary material, where the surrounding context would usually make the intended meaning obvious. But in a world of increasingly creative commercial names and other new styles of print usage, together with increasingly technical content, misreadings would be more and more likely if the ambiguity were not removed from the braille code. A secondary reason for removing ambiguity is the increasing importance of automated braille-to-print conversion. A blind student who prepares a paper for a sighted teacher needs to know that the paper will be free of mistakes introduced by the braille note-taker when it converts the paper to print—an increasingly common scenario. If there are ambiguities in the braille code, computer software will make such mistakes, including some that a human transcriber would not make—and it will make them much faster!

Extensibility is another key concept in UEB. The world’s writing systems, along with language generally, never stand still. So, we felt, it should be with braille. When new symbols come to be defined, or older symbols used in new ways and contexts, braille should be able to express those symbols naturally and with clarity, without any need for "transcriber's notes". In fact, if a blind mathematician were to need to define a new symbol, there is no reason that that symbol should not begin its life as a braille symbol, leaving the sighted to devise a counterpart in print!

Our basic design committee presented its first report, which we naively hoped would be its last, in November 1992. In the deliberations that led up to that report, we had gained some basic insights, which have stuck with us to this day. Among those insights were three I will mention here:

First, there is a fundamental need to ensure that the extent of any one braille symbol, whether it be a single-cell or a multi-cell symbol, can be readily determined, even if the meaning of the symbol is not immediately known. Otherwise, the reader who encounters an unfamiliar symbol cannot be sure what to look up—and ambiguities are bound to arise when, say, a certain sequence of single-cell signs could also be interpreted as a multi-cell sign. This need is realized in UEB by symbol formation rules based upon a "prefix-root" structure that flows naturally from the principles evident in Louis Braille's original design. [1] This structure is one of the cornerstones of UEB that gives it extensibility as well as clarity.

Second, the assignment of symbols for the digits, and the general rules surrounding numbers, must be decided early in the process because everything else is affected by those decisions.

Third, the use of contractions in literary braille, which typically takes up all the single-cell symbols that are available after the alphabet, digits and basic punctuation are assigned, makes it hugely complicated to add capabilities for mathematics and science in a way that is both unambiguous and efficient.

In summary, we learned that unification is technically difficult, and that Louis Braille’s basic design principles and original decisions most often provided the best guidance to a way forward.

That 1992 report received a very mixed reception. Some people accepted its premises and liked its recommendations while others rejected both. Another lesson emerged: that unification is not only technically difficult, but politically difficult as well.

But at least the effort caught the attention of the English-speaking world beyond North America. In July 1993, at a meeting in Australia, the International Council on English Braille, which had been formed two years earlier in Canada, joined the UEB development effort as its first major project. Now UEB was attempting not only vertical unification within North America, but also to do the same for all English speakers in other regions— in other words, to carry out country-to-country unification as well. A particular challenge to this effort was that, while the diversity between English literary codes for different regions was relatively small, the diversity between the North American and British math codes was huge—practically every sign, right down to the digits, was different. The same was true of the two computer notation codes.

Naturally, the UEB committees were expanded to include representatives from the other ICEB countries. At this point, a principle was established that had been de facto realized in the earlier work and that had come to be recognized as important— namely, that all committees, from the working technical committees on up to the ICEB’s General Assembly delegations, must include a majority of blind braille users. This common-sense principle assures that decisions are controlled by people who understand the problems most intimately and who are most affected by those decisions. Almost as importantly, such a principle is of some help in assuring braille readers generally that the code isn’t just another “bright idea” brought on by a committee dominated by sighted users of print. In other words, it goes a little way towards addressing the political difficulties that naturally go with change.

The development phase of the UEB project came to a close in April 2004, when the ICEB General Assembly declared UEB ready for use and recommended that the various national authorities consider its adoption. Four of the seven ICEB countries, namely Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria and South Africa, have since officially adopted UEB and are working towards its implementation. The other three, namely Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, are in various stages of decision-making at this writing (December 2008).

The details of the UEB development, including historical and current reports, can be found on the ICEB Web site [2]. A research report on UEB appeared in the April, 2005 issue of the Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness [3].

In the meantime, committees working with other languages and pursuing similar goals have produced unified braille codes. These include Spanish [4], French [5] and Japanese [6].

While UEB and similar efforts for other languages aim to bring about country-to-country and vertical unification, the third kind, namely the unification of specialist codes, generally remains unrealized, with one notable and happy exception—one for which, as usual, we have Louis Braille to thank. That exception is of course music, where an accepted international braille code—based upon the music code that Louis Braille himself designed—is used by blind musicians all around the world, no matter what language they may speak. But for other special notations, most notably mathematics but also for other scientific disciplines, international specialist codes are generally lacking.

It may at first seem contradictory to advocate the development of general codes, such as UEB, that incorporate not only a natural language but also mathematics and science notation on the one hand, and at the same time advocate the development of a separate code for mathematics that can cut across language boundaries. However, as we have already observed, braille codes for different languages are mostly different in fact, and such differences are necessary for braille to remain a practical writing and reading system. It shouldn’t surprise us if the technical provisions of a vertically unified code that is tied to a particular language, such as UEB, reflect the characteristics of that language to a certain extent and so differ from the corresponding provisions in some other unified code. This is largely because it is necessary to design first for the needs of the natural language, and even to optimize for those needs, because that is what most braille users—even those who work in technical fields—are reading and writing most of the time. Once those needs are met, the technical needs must be accommodated within the possibilities that are left, and those will vary from one language to the next. As an example, the standard Vietnamese alphabet has two forms of the letter d, one a “plain” d as in most Western alphabets and the other with a bar across the top in print; there is also no letter z. In the Vietnamese literary braille code, the braille assignment for the barred d has the same dot configuration as that used in most Western braille codes for the regular (unbarred) d, while the assignment for the unbarred d corresponds to the configuration used in Western codes for the z. A unified code for Vietnamese would clearly need to take these special characteristics of the base code into account when extending it to include mathematics or computer notation.

A related consequence of the need to optimize for the natural language is that the treatment of technical notation cannot be fully optimal. This is just common sense: when you design a code for a specific purpose as a first priority, it will consequently be better for that purpose than one designed primarily for some larger, or different, purpose. For example, the North American specialty code for computer notation, CBC, provides a single-cell symbol for the commercial at-sign. That makes sense because that is a fairly common symbol in computer notation, such as in email addresses. But in general literature, for which UEB is designed, the commercial at-sign is far too rare to permit such an assignment without severely impacting the choices available for other symbols. As a result of this and similar design considerations affecting both codes, CBC is typically more efficient at representing computer programs than UEB. On the other hand, UEB can represent not only computer programs but other mathematical and scientific notations as well as typical English text, whereas CBC can only represent computer notation—you must “switch out” of CBC to represent anything else.

Consequently, a common code designed specifically for computer programming would not only give programmers who speak different languages a way to read each other’s programs but also a way to work more efficiently in their occupational specialty or area of advanced study. Similar benefits would apply in mathematics and other technical disciplines. This is certainly useful and desirable. But arguably, this is not as important as unifying the general, language-based codes such as UEB—because that kind of unification should lead more people to a better understanding and appreciation of math and science notation in the first place. In other words, we can hope that UEB and codes like it would not only provide an adequate tool for most people when it comes to everyday technical notation but would also give rise to more people who would demand a more efficient code for their own specialty. Such a development would mean success for the unification movement—even if, ironically, it meant the birth of another code!

As I have mentioned briefly, one of the significant challenges to unification is the politics surrounding any changes to the basic literary code—braille as people read and write it every day. Changes in strictly technical codes are much easier, relatively speaking—people are willing to leave those to the specialists involved, as long as their own braille isn’t affected. But, if UEB is typical, the kind of unification that allows the general code to embrace technical notation is likely to lead to some changes in basic braille that, although minor, are noticeable enough and likely to be rejected by many braille users unless carefully justified during a period of preparation, which may take some time. This isn’t just obstructionism; people generally, whether blind or not, naturally resist change unless they see a real need and believe the proposed changes are well designed to fill that need. In places where strenuous efforts have been made to conduct workshops and otherwise educate braille users as to the need and eventual value of UEB, it has been well accepted; in other places, reaction has been much more negative. I don’t think we need to lose confidence that desirable changes will come about eventually, but perhaps we need to be patient as well as diligent as we work to bring it about.

After all, though Louis Braille must have been encouraged to see that his system worked well for himself and others close to him, he never got to experience the universal acceptance that it enjoys today. He never gave up, though, but worked tirelessly towards improvements that would further the usefulness of braille and its implicit goal of bringing people together. We now know that the foundation he created is a masterwork of human engineering. Let us, the beneficiaries and stewards of that work, muster the will, skill and patience to carry it forward into tomorrow’s world.

* * *

In Praise of the Slate and Stylus – A Reflection

By Jen Golden

Having learned braille at a very young age I remember little of the experience, except that I often wondered when I would be able to read books like my older sisters did. On the other hand, my introduction to the slate and stylus was a different story altogether. I have vivid memories of my antipathy towards this particular writing tool. To my seven-year-old logic it seemed ridiculous. It was slower than a brailler and I had to write backwards!

I was indignant that the powers that be (i.e. my classroom and itinerant teachers as well as my mother) were serious about enforcing this. Then, as now, I was very stubborn and, as my family and friends will readily attest, it is difficult to motivate me to work at something when I have set my mind against it. Mom and teachers persisted, however, and in grade five they came up with the idea of Slate-and-Stylus Day. One day each week I had to forgo my Perkins Brailler and use only the slate and stylus to complete my assignments. I don't recall now how long this lasted, but it availed little.

Four years later I was a grade nine student with all the hopes, challenges and insecurities which are such a big part of that time of transition. Just before school began - or sometime during the first week or two of classes - I thought to myself: "My brailler is a bit of an inconvenience now. I have a lot of things to carry and I need a free hand to open doors. It's also very noticeable!

Hmmm, maybe I should use the slate and stylus instead." None of the adults in my life had even hinted that perhaps the slate and stylus would be more practical for high school (although this had been said to me countless times when I was younger).

It is just as well, because I probably would have resisted. As it was, from that day on I have hardly ever touched a Perkins Brailler, and my slate and stylus got me through high school, a B.A. and a Master's degree. (I used a computer to type papers in university, but my sighted peers were doing the same.)

I have always been an avid reader and my level of braille proficiency is high, but my notes from the first few weeks of my grade nine year are almost impossible for me to decipher. Using my stubbornness to my advantage I persevered, and today I own several slates. As a child I did not understand the implications of not being adept with the braille user's equivalent of a pencil or pen, but now I feel that I could not overestimate its value. In fact, I wish that I had been taught the slate and stylus when I was first learning braille. I would have seen it as just another part of being able to read and write, skills I very much wanted to acquire.

Looking back I realize that my attitude was the real hindrance to mastering the slate and stylus. I sincerely wish I'd had a blind mentor who could have assured me (based on first-hand experience) that I shouldn't give up, that the effort would pay off. Something like: "I know this seems slow and inefficient now, but once you're good at it - and you will be if you practise - it will seem so natural to you that you'll pick up a stylus and write without giving it a second thought."

This person would have been right. (Of course it became much easier once I decided to use regular paper instead of braille paper!) Even now, though I own a notetaker (which I bought so I could access electronic braille books) I still prefer my slate and stylus for taking notes.

Somewhere in a storage bin in my basement I have a card given to me by my itinerant teacher. All it says is April 15, 1991. That was the day I admitted to her how glad I was that I could use the slate and stylus and use it well!

The Canadian School Braille Challenge

By Jen Golden

In honour of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, the Canadian Braille Authority sponsored the Canadian School Braille Challenge for elementary school students across Canada. The purpose of the Challenge was to give Canadian students and teachers a chance to learn more about this invaluable writing system. Students were given a list of activities and could choose to do as few or as many as they wished. The list included such tasks as transcribing a braille menu for a local restaurant, adapting a board game so it could be played by a blind person, researching blind celebrities and producing braille labels for classroom doors. Participants could work individually or as a group and had the option of designing an activity which was not on the list. Messages in SimBraille appeared on the CBA's Web site for students to decode. One of these messages informed participants that in 1952, 100 years after Louis Braille's death, his body was moved to the Pantheon, a resting place for France's national heroes. This is an honour which he shares with such notable figures as Marie Curie, Voltaire and Victor Hugo.

The response to the Canadian School Braille Challenge was enthusiastic. Many of the teachers indicated that it gave their blind students a chance to take on a leadership role as they were able to help their peers learn the braille skills needed to complete Challenge activities. One group of students even had their pictures taken for a local newspaper, which also included an article about the Braille Challenge and the importance of literacy for the blind.

Depending on the number of activities students completed, they received gold, silver or bronze certificates. Roughly 60 certificates were awarded to students of varying ages. I am grateful to all who helped with the Canadian School Braille Challenge. In particular I would like to thank Anne Wadsworth and the staff at PRCVI who produced all of the certificates in print and braille, both English and French. Of course this project would not have been a success without the enthusiasm of the teachers and students who participated. Many thanks to all the teachers and students who were willing to take on the Challenge!

The Creation of Braille Drawings by Children Who are Blind: Process & Learning Strategies

by Kim Charlson

It is vitally important that children who are blind be provided with early awareness, understanding, and the skills needed to create drawings using a Perkins Brailler. The early skill development of sighted children involves drawing and coloring, and the need for blind children to be able to replicate many of these same concepts through a tactile drawing process using braille will encourage and build necessary creative skills. Making simple line drawings using braille characters will allow a child to explore and create shapes such as squares, rectangles, triangles and diamonds that can be used as the outlines for coloring practice. Early coloring builds hand dexterity skills for holding a crayon or pencil comfortably and efficiently to color in the shapes. Later, this skill is easily transferred to learning to write print letters or one’s name or signature. Learning to draw pictures with the brailler strengthens several key developmental concepts and allows children to experience pride and self-esteem in the creation of drawings that can be shared with classmates, family members, and friends.

Following the creation of basic shapes, more intricate drawings, including those having concepts such as depth and perspective can be more easily taught. The development of recognized concepts in the design of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects can also be explored with students who demonstrate skills and understanding in this area.

In January, 2009, Drawing with Your Perkins Brailler was published, which contains step-by-step directions for creating thirty-six different drawings including basic shapes, various animals, holiday and transportation theme pictures. This book is being published by the Perkins School for the Blind, and is available for purchase from Perkins online at www.perkinsstore.org.

For me, braille has been the key to independence, literacy, creativity and self-determination. I have taken that important message to heart many times in my career path, in my advocacy and in my mentorship of others who are blind or visually impaired. Creativity comes from within us all, not from our vision or lack thereof; and I challenge everyone who tries the drawings outlined in my book to create their own drawings as well. What I hope my book will do is to empower others to create pictures and share them with the larger blindness community. To facilitate and otherwise enable the effective sharing of braille drawings, visit www.perkins.org/btbl/brailledrawings and submit your drawings to a growing collection of braille drawings that all of us can design. Let's build an online community of creative braille picture enthusiasts and share our thoughts and ideas together.

In honor of the conference and its tribute to Louis Braille, I created a braille drawing of The Eiffel Tower for everyone to enjoy. The directions for this drawing are provided as an example of the type of braille drawings included in my book. By following the directions, anyone can make the picture, and the symbols as well as the dot assignments are included.

Instructions for The Eiffel Tower

Directions: For this drawing, you should use an 8-1/2 by 11 inch sheet of pastel construction paper or heavyweight braille paper. Insert the paper portrait style. This drawing uses 24 lines.

Line 1: Space 6 times, write The words “Eiffel Tower” in uncontracted braille.

Line 2: Space 9 times, write the words “Paris, France” in uncontracted braille.

Line 3: Space 15 times, write 1 s (dots 2-3-4), write 1 wh sign (dots 1-5-6).

Line 4: Space 14 times, write 4 g's (dots 1-2-4-5).

Line 5: Space 15 times, write 1 and sign (dots 1-2-3-4-6), write 1 y (dots 1-3-4-5-6).

Line 6: Space 15 times, write 1 and sign, write 1 y.

Line 7: Space 15 times, write 1 and sign, write 1 y.

Line 8: Space 15 times, write 1 and sign, write 1 y.

Line 9: Space 15 times, write 1 p (dots 1-2-3-4), write 1 th sign (dots 1-4-5-6).

Line 10: Space 14 times, write 1 t (dots 2-3-4-5), space 2 times, write 1 ou sign (dots 1-2-5-6).

Line 11: Space 13 times, write 1 t, space 4 times, write 1 ou sign.

Line 12: Space 12 times, write 1 and sign, write 7 x's (dots 1-3-4-6), write 1 y.

Line 13: Space 13 times, write 6 for signs (full cell, dots 1-2-3-4-5-6).

Line 14: Space 13 times, write 1 and sign, write 4 x's, write 1 y.

Line 15: Space 13 times, write 2 for signs, space 2 times, write 2 for signs.

Line 16: Space 12 times, write 1 with sign (dots 2-3-4-5-6), write 2 for signs, space 2 times, write 2 for signs, write 1 of sign (dots 1-2-3-5-6).

Line 17: Space 11 times, write 1 with sign, write 3 for signs, space 2 times, write 3 for signs, write 1 of sign.

Line 18: Space 9 times, write 1 and sign, write 1 x, write 10 for signs, write 1 x, write 1 y.

Line 19: Space 10 times, write 1 p, write 1 th sign, write 1 p, write 1 th sign, write 1 p, write 1 th sign, write 1 p, write 1 th sign, write 1 p, write 1 th sign, write 1 p, write 1 th sign.

Line 20: Space 10 times, write 1 h (dots 1-2-5), write 1 j (dots 2-4-5), write 1 h, write 1 j, write 1 h, write 1 j, write 1 h, write 1 j, write 1 h, write 1 j, write 1 h, write 1 j.

Line 21: Space 9 times, write 2 st signs (dots 3-4), space 1 time, write 1 t, write 7 g's, write 1 ou sign, space 1 time, write 2 ch signs (dots 1-6).

Line 22: Space 8 times, write 2 st signs, space 1 time, write 1 t, space 9 times, write 1 ou sign, space 1 time, write 2 ch signs.

Line 23: Space 7 times, write 2 st signs, space 1 time, write 1 t, space 11 times, write 1 ou sign, space 1 time, write 2 ch signs.

Line 24: Space 6 times, write 2 with signs, write 1 parenthesis (dots 2-3-5-6), write 1 t, space 13 times, write 1 ou sign, write 1 parenthesis, write 2 of signs.

(Editor’s note: Kim Charlson is the Director of the Braille & Talking Book Library at the Perkins School for the Blind. I would like to challenge CBA newsletter readers to create and share their tactile drawings and directions. How about some Canadian themes - Inukshuks, the CN or Calgary Tower, or ?)

“Listening to Braille” - What Do You Think?

If you have not already done so you may find the recent article, “Listening to Braille”, in the January 3^rd, 2010 New York Times Magazine very interesting. The url for the article is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03Braille-.html?scp=1&sq=braille&st=cse

Needless to say, this article has resulted in quite a strong response from readers including the two that follow. At this time we understand that the letter from Pat Gould, a “vision” teacher in the Delta School District in British Columbia will be included in a future NYTimes “Letters to the Editor” column.

We would love to hear from you and invite you to respond to the initial article by Rachel Aviv or to the following responses. We will be pleased to include your responses in future CBA monthly news bulletins.

Hi,

I think the article is front-loaded to get people's attention, focusing on Ms Sloate's viewpoint and on how well she functions in a sighted world. Educators, administrators and parents hearing only her opinions can negatively affect the future of braille. The more balanced sections are further down the page. They are well thought out and make many good points. Hopefully, everyone reads the complete article.

I'm glad that Ms Sloate is happy with the direction literacy went for her. And I'm disappointed that she feels that her literacy experience should be the norm for all people with severe visual impairments. Perhaps her lack of braille hasn't impacted her life as much as it might for others, but there has been an impact. Some students are not as auditory and need the tactile qualities of braille to help them learn to read, to remember, to reread as needed, and to just help them learn, in general. Yes, braille is time consuming, initially slowing the student down and costing school districts money. In the long run, it is educationally critical. It's like the approach to print literacy -- we no longer say that reading has to be taught phonetically. Instead we provide students with a wide variety of literacy approaches and, over time, they will choose what works best for them.

There is no denying that there will be difficult times for any student who is perceived as different (and for those who aren't). Being able to pick up a book can take us away from some of these problems and can help us connect with others. I think it is a crime to remove, for all time, a person's ability to enjoy a book tactually, to simply sit in a chair and read at her own speed, to use her imagination for the voices, for the inflection, to slow down for, or reread, certain passages that capture her interest. I say 'for all time' because how likely is it that an adult using only screen readers will choose to learn braille later in life?

There is a place for technology and for braille. It's not an either/or situation. Maybe it's Ms Sloate's lack of braille that has shaped her point of view. I don't negate her view; I just see it as limited. I'd like to hear from people who have learned to read through braille and read using technology, people who have a more balanced viewpoint based on their own literacy experiences.

Patricia Gould, Surrey, BC

Dear Editor:

Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine article, “Listening to Braille,” by Rachel Aviv, highlights a number of reasons for the decline in the use of braille among blind individuals today, but one crucial point is missing: the lack of access to trained braille instructors in the public schools and especially in rural areas.

At The Hadley School for the Blind, located in Winnetka, Ill., we are addressing the crisis in braille literacy head on through distance education. For 90 years, Hadley has been teaching “braille by mail.” Today, we offer more than 10 braille courses and have 13 highly-qualified faculty members dedicated to teaching this critical literacy skill to 10,000 students over the age of 14.

Hadley students – whether they are newly blinded adults, parents of visually impaired children or blindness professionals -- study braille in the convenience of their own home, at their own pace and receive personalized instruction from an instructor via the telephone or email. All of our courses for blind or visually impaired students are free of charge and are offered in a student’s medium of choice: braille, large print, audio or online. In addition, Hadley offers an award-wining braille curriculum for sighted teachers via the Internet.

While technology has certainly leveled the playing field for those with vision loss, it has also created a widening gap, as Aviv points out, between the haves and the have-nots, meaning those who have the resources to access information in new ways and those who do not. Furthermore, speech cannot and should not be a substitute for the written word and the ability to read. Data from the National Federation of the Blind and other organizations clearly demonstrates what we have seen in our students all along: braille readers have a higher degree of education, are more successful in finding employment and are more likely to become independent and self-sufficient.

We encourage individuals interested in learning and/or teaching braille to find out more about Hadley’s distance education programs. Call us at 800-323-4238 or visit www.hadley.edu.

Sincerely,

Charles Young, President

Hadley School for the Blind

CBA Votes on Recommendation to Implement UEB in Canada

On April 24^th of 2010 at the Canadian Annual Meetings of CBA, member participants will be asked to vote on whether CBA should recommend the implementation of UEB in Canada. Those who cannot attend these meetings can choose to vote by assigning their proxy to a member of the Board of CBA. A list of CBA Board members and their email addresses is located on the last page of this newsletter.

Nominations to the CBA Board

Nomination Committee Seeks Board Members Each year the Canadian Braille Authority Nomination Committee recruits new members for the CBA Board to place any members who have completed their terms. This year we have one retiring member and would like to request that you forward the names and contact information for anyone you would like to nominate. Also, your name and contact information is required and we ask that you discuss the nomination with the nominee prior to submitting her/his name. Board members must be advocates of the promotion of braille literacy and willing to participate in the work of CBA. For more information on the activities typically taken on my CBA, please refer potential nominees to our website: www.canadianbrailleauthority.ca. Please forward your nominations to: Ann MacCuspie [Ann.MacCuspie@gmail.com]

Edie Mourre Transcriber Scholarship

The Canadian Braille Authority established a scholarship in memory of Edie Mourre in 2008. Edie was a dedicated braille transcriber and strong advocate for access to braille. The Edie Mourre Transcriber’s Scholarship is available for an individual who meets either of the following criteria:

Registered to learn English Braille, Nemeth Code, Music Braille, Computer Braille or other braille systems.
Registered to participate in a professional development pursuit directly relevant to the transcription of braille.

The Edie Mourre Scholarship will provide up to $1000 to support applicants taking courses or pursuing relevant professional development.

CBA is pleased to continue to receive donations in memory of Edie which go directly toward this scholarship fund. A receipt for income tax purposes will be provided. Reg. Charity # - 889010799-RR001

Should you wish to contribute please send donations to:

The Canadian Braille Authority

The Edie Mourre Transcriber’s Scholarship

C/O Joy Charlton

CNIB Library

1929 Bayview Ave.

Toronto Ontario, M4G 3E8

CANADIAN BRAILLE AUTHORITY

L'AUTORITÉ CANADIENNE DU BRAILLE

EDIE MOURRE Transcriber’s Scholarship

The Edie Mourre Scholarship will provide up to $1000 to support applicants taking courses or pursuing relevant professional development. It is available to an individual who meets either of the following criteria:

Registered to learn English Braille, Nemeth Code, Music Braille, Computer Braille or other braille systems.

Registered to participate in a professional development pursuit directly relevant to the transcription of braille.

Application Form

Name:

Address:

Telephone:Email:

Outline current level of transcription certification:

Why are you applying for the Edie Mourre Scholarship?

Outline an estimate of the personal costs you will incur in completing your course or

professional development activity.

Please provide the name and telephone number of an individual who supports your

application for the Edie Mourre Transcriber’s Scholarship.

Forward completed application to:

The Canadian Braille Authority

The Edie Mourre Transcriber’s Scholarship

C/O Joy Charlton

CNIB Library

1929 Bayview Ave.

Toronto, Ontario, M4G 3E8

Memorial

Linda McAlpine

Staff, parents, students, colleagues and friends of the Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority (APSEA) were saddened to learn of Linda’s death in July, 2009. Linda was a dedicated advocate and highly regarded professional in the field of visual impairment and blindness in Canada. Her early educational pursuits focused on psychology and educational programming for students with multiple disabilities. She obtained her undergraduate degrees in education and psychology and was a registered psychologist with the province of Nova Scotia where her focus was on children who with visual impairments.

During her career Linda was devoted to professional development and participation in professional organizations. She filled many positions with the Nova Scotia Council for Exceptional Children (i.e., President, Vice President, Co-Chair of provincial conferences) and was also a National board member. She was a member of AER and routinely presented in conferences across North America.

Linda held many positions at APSEA (i.e., Coordinator of Elementary Programs at Sir Frederick Fraser School (part of the APSEA Campus), Acting Director, Coordinator of Provincial Services and Programs, Coordinator of Assessments, Psychologist and Counsellor). She was an advocate of braille and promoted braille literacy for students of all ages and abilities.

During her career at APSEA, Linda was enrolled at Dalhousie University, working part-time on a Ph.D. thesis in Clinical Psychology: The Early Stages in the Development of Social Understanding in an Infant who is Blind. Her work was published in JVIB. Linda was unable to complete this degree due to her illness.

As evident from this impressive list of accomplishments, Linda had many responsibilities and made significant contributions to the field of visual impairment and blindness. In all cases, she resolved to provide the best programs and services to families and to children with visual impairments. Linda did so with grace, a calm manner, an understanding of the needs of others, a willingness to listen, a selfless dedication, and a determination to find the best in everyone. Her involvement with parents, school districts, and teachers was conducted with a genuine interest in the needs of the students, and with tact and infinite patience.

Linda’s generosity, kindness, and friendship will be remembered in the hearts of all those who had the good fortune to know her and work with her.