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When Mary Lou Hofmann, the principal of the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind (FSDB), was at a conference in 2012, she encountered an electronic brailler that had just been introduced to the market. The SMART Brailler, manufactured by Perkins Solutions, Perkins School for the Blind, is an electronic device that has a video screen and provides audio feedback. It displays and speaks letters and words as a student brailles them, which provides instant feedback to a student, allowing him or her to work independently. The video screen on the device is designed to allow parents of children with visual impairments and teachers who educate such students in inclusive classrooms to observe visually in Roman letters what students are writing in braille.
Although Ms. Hofmann was not sure what the potential benefits would be, she decided to purchase one and to ask Kathleen Michaelson, braille specialist at FSDB, to experiment with it and see if she thought it could be useful. Two years later, interviews conducted at FSDB indicate that all of those who have been exposed to the SMART Brailler believe it improves the learning capabilities of most students who have the physical and cognitive ability to learn braille. FSDB now has more than a dozen SMART Braillers and is using them in multiple classrooms and in a variety of learning situations.
About the Perkins SMART Brailler
The SMART Brailler was conceptualized and invented by David Morgan, vice president and general manager of Perkins Products (see Figure 1). Mr. Morgan wanted to improve on traditional methods of learning braille and to introduce new technology that would foster independent learning and help bridge the gap between when students would transition from using a low-tech Classic Perkins Brailler to using a refreshable braille display-and-laptop combination, which led to the development of a braillewriter that combined text-to-speech audio output, a visual cellular phone display, and learning applications that are designed to support full engagement by the learner.
The SMART Brailler is both a mechanical and an electronic braille writer. When the electricity is off, it works just like a standard braille writer, producing hardcopy braille. When it is turned on, the user receives instantaneous audio and visual feedback so that a visually impaired student can...