On January 4, International Braille Day is commemorated.
This day, implemented in 2.019, seeks to raise awareness for the integration of people with blindness or visual impairment thanks to the use of this literacy system and that day was made to coincide with birth of its creator. Louis Braille was born in Coupvray (France) on January 4, 1809 and died on January 6, 1852.
Born into a humble family dedicated to saddling, he lost his vision in one eye at the age of 3 due to an accident with a tranchete while playing in his father's workshop, going blind 2 years later for the infection produced.
Later, his father taught him to read using tapestry studs with which he formed the letters on wood or a piece of leather.
In 1818 he began his education at the village school, where his teacher taught him through oral transmission.
He received a scholarship to attend the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris (the first institute created in France for the training of blind children) where he would later work as a teacher. In 1821 he became acquainted with the Barbier system, developed to facilitate the French army's communications in the dark, which could be read with the fingers and which consisted of a phonetic transcription using points and hyphens.
In 1825 the Braille system began to be used in the Institute where it worked for its various virtues in front of it, finally being published in 1829.
One of these virtues is the independence of the Braille character from its representation in ink, which facilitated its learning and use by blind people.
However, this characteristic made this system prohibited in the institute because the teachers considered it an inconvenience since it isolated blind people from those who did not have vision problems (teachers did not usually have visual problems).
In 1.844 was approved for general use in that institute due to pressure from students who used it clandestinely.
In 1854, two years after the death of Braille, the system was officially adopted by the institutions.
By 1882 its use was already widespread throughout Europe. Braille is a tactile representation of alphabetic and number symbols that uses six dots to represent each letter and number, and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols, which that allows to have 63 possible combinations.
With the arrival of computer science, the number of points was expanded to eight to achieve 255 combinations and to be able to represent the ASCII code.
Its flexibility has allowed its adaptation to all existing languages ??and uses, adjusting it to your needs. This writing system is used by blind or visually impaired people to read different types of documents equivalent to those printed for visual reading and guarantees the communication of important information for them and others and represents competence, independence and equality .
It has introduced various improvements in the lives of these groups, such as: Access to information in books and magazines on paper. Ease both when reading and writing the information. Possibility of using braille labels that allow the identification of various products such as medicines, some foods, Incorporation of informative labels that can be found in buildings such as elevators, office doors, monuments, It has made possible the creation of electronic devices that include such a system called braille lines (braille display in English) that allow reading on computers as well as mobile devices, as well as printing.
direct on paper (braille printers). In summary, the invention of the braille system has made it possible for blind people to integrate into society, eliminating barriers that until their creation seemed insurmountable.
