Subject: On Braille
Date: 9/11/2024, 4:00 PM
To: double tap <[email protected]>
Hi Double Tap Team,
I have been concerned about arguments from Braille advocates ever since I took a college level course in linguistics and semantics in the mid 1980s. My semester project for the class was a combination of a long essay and oral presentation on Braille.
My courses in statistics and logic also influenced my assessments of Braille advocates’ arguments. Jonathan Mosen raised the issue of Braille literacy back in August 2022 on his then Mosen at Large show. I am repurposing some views that I shared at that time. Mr. Mosen did not use or respond to any of my views.
Many Braille advocates assert that there is some kind of meaningful cause and effect relationship between Braille literacy and employment. These advocates almost never provide the name and or source beyond stating that there are studies supporting their position. There is sometimes mention of the NFB. The following is an almost exact copy of what I sent to Mr. Mosen. I changed you to MR. Mosen:
Mr. Mosen asserted in episode 193 of Mosen at Large that there are studies showing employment rates of 90% for braille literate people. Without Mr. Mosen identifying studies of braille literacy and employment by name, I cannot review and evaluate them. I was able to find the following study on a NFB website:
Rehabilitation and Employment Outcomes for Adults Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired: An Updated Report
By Edward C. Bell, Ph.D., and Arielle M. Silverman, Ph.D.
The authors of this study are careful to use words like correlate, correlates and association when discussing braille literacy and employment. This word choice is important because of a core principle in both logic and statistics. Correlation is not causation. This means that people trying to suggest that braille literacy leads to better employment outcomes are simply wrong. All that can be claimed is an association.
The study also has a huge methodology problem. I could find no evidence that the authors tried to control for self-selection bias. The survey participant recruitment method used as described in the report probably increased the likelihood of self-selection bias. The failure to control for self-selection bias generally means for social scientist and policy researchers that the study is probably worthless for activities like public or education policy analysis.
Many Braille advocates assert that there is some kind of meaningful difference between reading and listening for learning. Many Braille advocates stressed the importance of decoding and encoding writing and Braille as some how being important for learning. I am again repurposing sections of an Email that I sent Mr. Mosen that apply to this argument:
“With the exception of deaf and deaf/blind children, all children begin to learn and master language through speech. They do not start out speaking in complete sentences so some kind of decoding and encoding is involved while learning.”
I later pointed to the only scientific study on the subject that I am aware of:
There is at least one study suggesting at the level of cognition that there are only slight differences between listening and reading for the brain. The online version of Discover Magazine has an article titled Audiobooks or Reading? To Our Brains, It Doesn’t Matter. The article summarizes a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience. I went on to point out that the study was small and restricted to short stories. Despite the limits of this study, it cast doubt on the idea that listening is less valuable than Braille.
I could go on quite some time, but will restrict myself to one more topic. Many Braille advocates asserts that none Braille users cannot handle issues of spelling and punctuation when writing. I think that these advocates under estimate the efficiency of the combination of current text to speech engines and screen readers.
Most profound thanks to Laura if she ends up reading this message.
Best Regards,
Ken – Sacramento – California – USA