Hello Ardith,

On Mon 2039-Jun-06 23:42, Ardith Hinton (1:153/716) wrote to Richard Webb:

RW>  AFrican signal or war drums require a whole lot of
RW>  of space to capture [...] as those drums are designed
RW>  to be heard.


AH>           Ah... like the Scottish war pipes, I guess.  :-)

Indeed.  These were wood, essentially big hollowed out logs, gazelle hide
skins on them.  I wet them down once and put a
candle under them for a few hours to tighten 'em up, and
picked on Kathy for using them as decorative end tables for
her little pottery jungle animals.  The big one was about 22 inch bass drum
size, maybe just a bit smaller.
HEr ex husband acquired them while in the navy.



RW>  .


AH>           How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
AH>           After they've seen Paree?   




RW>  THey were doing experiments with kids reading large print,
RW>  even with desktop magnifiers, etc.  I'm sure in Canada as
RW>  well, from stats I've seen, but there is currently a
RW>  worldwide braille literacy crisis among blind children.


AH>           I find the trend disturbing too.  A family friend who
AH> graduates from elementary school this year has a rare syndrome which
AH> is causing deterioration in her vision.  Years ago I had a student
AH> who was in a similar position... and who got Braille lessons from an
AH> itinerant teacher who came to the school.  Our friend's mother wants
AH> her to learn Braille because she's reached a point where the
AH> printing has to be enlarged so much that even at elementary level a
AH> single word may not necessarily fit onto a single page.  But it
AH> seems that everywhere Mom goes looking for help she's told "We don't
AH> do Braille any more"... (sigh). 

THere is a CAnadian FEderation of the Blind.  Have her look
on www.nfb.org, there may be links.  There waso might be
assistance for her via Canadian National Institute for the
Blind.  she should pursue that.  If nothing else, she can
use one of the email links of nfb.org to get to somebody who will help her
with networking with the proper folks up your
way.
It's important to get the little ones started with braille
asap in these situation, imnsho.



RW>  part of that is the mistaken belief that synthesized
RW>  speech, etc. can supplant braille.


AH>           I don't believe it can... not yet, at any rate.  I've
AH> heard what the synthesized speech on a GPS makes of "Lougheed
AH> Highway", "Shaughnessy Street", etc.  And as one who's taught
AH> developmental reading I understand how important it is to be able to
AH> read words in groups & to notice subtleties in intonation. 

Indeed, for example, when using qedit I want my synthesizer
to give me punctuation spoken aloud because it may be
crucial to proper syntax for program code.  IF I'm using it
to just read a textfile though I'll shut it off.  still
speech doesn't have that immediate connection to the brain
braille has.  I can speed read and still comprehend using
Braille, synthesized speech, I'm limited to the rate at
which I can understand spoken words, if not a bit slower.

Other disadvantage:  WHen doing something such as sitting in a waiting room I
don't want to be closed off from the rest
of the world as I would be with audio reading and
headphones, even one earbud is more cut off from the world
than I like to be.


AH>           Makes sense to me.  There is now an increasing body of
AH> evidence that human beings can "see" via the skin & I think our
AH> friend would take to Braille like a duck to water.  She is very
AH> sensitive to touch, and she already knows a bit of sign language. 
AH> As a teacher I generally found a multi-sensory approach most
AH> effective... i.e. the more connections one can establish the better.

Always.  IN fact, some of my arguments in other activities
is that we're too busy teaching to standardized multiple
guess tests than we are putting folks' hands on what is to
be learned.  I get a bit frustrated with that .

Regards,
           Richard
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