Questions & Answers

Please, find below some more Questions and Answers.

Q: Who is it for?

• LEGO Braille Bricks are to help blind and visually impaired children to learn Braille and benefit from this playful learning tool. Although the toolkit is intended as a playful introduction to braille for younger children four and up, it has also proven to have learning opportunities and benefits for children in secondary school. Because the bricks also feature letters, numbers and symbols they can be used simultaneously with sighted peers and classmates.

Q: Which schools will receive the kit and how do you select the schools?

• LEGO Braille Bricks will only be available through established channels supplying resources for the blind and visually impaired. This means that schools and institutions can apply for eligibility with our official partner organisations, who are listed on the official website www.LEGObraillebricks.com. LEGO Braille Bricks cannot be purchased outside these channels.

Q: Have you worked with registered blind associations in the development of the product?

• Yes, working with experts within the field has been an instrumental part of developing and testing the LEGO Braille Brick concept. The initial test partners have included the “Danish Association of the Blind”, Brazilian based “Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind”, UK based organisations “Royal National Institute of Blind People” and “Leonard Cheshire” as well as Norwegian “Blindeforbundet Norge”. A second round of testing in 2019 was conducted in partnership with organisations in Germany, France, Mexico and United States of America. We are now working with official partners from the blind community in each country where we launch. Their tasks are to distribute the toolkits and disseminate the teaching concept to the teachers and support staff educating blind and visually impaired children.

Q: Do you have a website to go with the teaching concept?

• Yes, we have developed a dedicated website www.LEGObraillebricks.com that gives free access to the play-based activities to support the teaching of pre-braille and braille skills. The website has undergone an accessibility audit and passed WCAG 2.1 AA (an international standard on web accessibility) ensuring that web content is accessible to people with disabilities including low vision. A usability audit was also carried out and the website was tested with blind and partially sighted people.

Q: Why is it still important to support the prevalence of Braille in 2019?

• Young blind children have the same dreams and aspirations for their future as sighted children. But as they grow older, they risk involuntary isolation as a consequence of exclusion from social and sporting activities as well as taking the same educational and career paths as sighted children. Today, the number of blind people receiving an education is drastically declining leading to greater unemployment. Research shows that learning braille can widen opportunities for blind and visually impaired children, enabling them to experience intellectual freedom, independence and equal access to study and work. Braille opens doors for blind people to further develop a wide breadth of skills – all helping to build the confidence needed to pursue their dreams and aspirations in life. According to the European Blind Union (EBU), Braille knowledge leads to better literacy – correct spelling, reading and writing – and greater understanding of text structure. Braille users often have a higher level of education and have better employment opportunities. So, despite technical advancement, it is still highly important for children to learn braille and LEGO Braille Bricks provide a revolutionary platform to teach braille in a very playful and therefore child appropriate manner.