Abstract
Today the majority of the blind children in Japan are provided only with braille slates as the writing device in their classrooms. Our past experiences with the braille typewriter have indicated clearly that this instrument yields a higher working efficiency than the braille slate. However, no precise scientific analysis has yet been made in comparing and determing the differences between the braille slate and the braille typewriter in the amount and quality of the work performed and also in the more practical aspect of the relative usability of two kinds of braille writing devices in daily teaching and learning situations. Employing as the experimental subjects some totally blind children enrolled in the lower classes of an elementary section of school for the blind, the present study attempted to make a thorough comparison of the standard braille slate and the representative braille typewriters with regard to several aspects of the working efficiency. At the same time, a training program in learning to use the typewriter which might promise the best results was tried out. This study contributed in clarifying the following points. 1. Even the blind children enrolled in the lower classes of the elementary section of school for the blind are able to attain a sufficient mastery in their use of the braille typewriter in a relatively short period, when carefully arranged steps progressing throughout both the the preliminary and advanced stages of training are designed. 2. As compared with the braille slate, the braille typewriter is higher in writing speed and accuracy, easier in confirming and/or correcting the written materials, more suitable for continuation of working, and finally, less in the amount of fatigue. 3. When the main braille typewriters of foreign and Japanese manufacture were compared and evaluated in structural and operational aspects, costs involved in purchasing them, and in other points, it was clear that Perkins Brailler excelles all the other currently available braille typewriters. The braille typewriter can be said to yield approximately three times as much overall working efficiency as the braille slate, from which it follows that the use of the former would save about two-thirds of the time incurred in writing when the blind children use the braille slate. The above considerations urge us to start seriously looking into the possibility of effecting some appropriate educational, administrative, and financial measures in the nearest future possible, so that the maximum benefits could be derived from the proved high qualities of the braille typewriter. However, it goes without saying that the braille slate is another type of device with highly accredited qualities intrinsic to it, and therefore, an intelligent and flexible use of this instrument is to be recommended in meeting the requirements that various living and learning occasions present to the blind children.
