Shortcuts to Disabilities
Mobility Impaired
Hearing Impaired
Visually Impaired
Eating Disorders
Learning Disabilities
ADHD
Communications Disorder
Dyslexia



THE BRAILLE ALPHABET


Lay your mouse pointer over each BRAILLE symbol
to find out what letter each icon represents.
The Braille Symbols (shown as gifs) are just to the right of the matching text letter.
Below the alphabet, you will find some additional information regarding Braille Symbol Construction. After you digest all this.....if your daring enough, you can try to spell your name or even write a brief letter. The English Alphabet is hard enough to learn when you are little; maybe if we all tried to spell our names in class- on paper using braille symbols, we would better understand what the blind or low vision student is challenged with in just one area of their life!



The lowercase Braille letters.




a Lowercase letter a.   b Lowercase letter b.   c Lowercase letter c.   d Lowercase letter d.   e Lowercase letter e.   f Lowercase letter f.   g Lowercase letter g.   h Lowercase letter h.  

i Lowercase letter i.   j Lowercase letter j.   k Lowercase letter k.   l Lowercase letter l.   m Lowercase letter m.   n Lowercase letter n.   o Lowercase letter o.   p Lowercase letter p.   q Lowercase letter q.  

r Lowercase letter r.   s Lowercase letter s.   t Lowercase letter t.   u Lowercase letter u.   v Lowercase letter v.   w Lowercase letter w.   x Lowercase letter x.   y Lowercase letter y.   z Lowercase letter z.  



General Braille Information



The six dots of the Braille cell are arranged like  six dots, in 2 vertical rows of 3. The dots are numbered 1 through 6, starting in the upper left corner, going down.

To indicate that a letter is capital  Dot 6 is placed before it. For example, A is  Dot 6 followed by Dot 1 and B is  Dot 6 followed by Dots 1 and 2 and C is  Dot 6 followed by Dots 1 and 4 and so on.

A number in braille is simply  Dots 3, 4, 5 and 6 placed before the letters a to j. For example, 1 is   Dots 3, 4, 5 and 6 followed by Dot 1 and 2 is  Dots 3, 4, 5 and 6 followed by Dots 1 and 2 and 3 is  Dots 3, 4, 5 and 6 followed by Dots 1 and 4 and so on.

In addition to these braille symbols, the braille system contains equivalents for all the other punctuation marks and special symbols, such as the italic sign and the general accent sign. There are a total of 189 contractions and short-form words.

One type of contraction consists of a single letter, which, when standing alone, represents a common word, such as "b" for "but", "h" for "have".

Commonly recurring letter combinations such as "gh" "ou" are represented by other dot combinations. Short-form words are abbreviations for common words, such as "alm" for "almost"
( Dot 1Dots 1, 2 and 3Dots 1, 3 and 4),"ei" for "either" ( Dots 1 and 5Dots 2 and 4).



NOTE:
After you write your name the first time in Braille Symbols,
remove the sheet and see if you can do it from Memory.
Now, pass it to someone else and see if they can read it!





Schlagel, D.B (1997)Braille Gifs,[Internet].
Available: http://disserv3.stu.umn.edu/ALTFORM/ 
Information from National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped  [1997, July 11].


A 3 column by 4 row table of other category links to our site.

Home

Sponsors

Resources

Trip

Fun Stuff

Team

E-mail

Accessibility

Universal Design

Did You Know?

Parents' Corner

Assistive Technology