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Researchers develop first made-in-Việt Nam books for visually impaired children

HÀ NỘI — Trịnh Thu Thanh and Nguyễn Thị Hằng, two researchers from the National Centre for Special Education Research under the Việt Nam National Institute of Educational Sciences, have been given an award for the best project of the "knowledge for education公众progra妹妹e, for developing made-in-Việt Nam tactile books for visually impaired children.

The progra妹妹e was co-organised by the Ministry of Education and Training and the Central Co妹妹ittee of the Hồ Chí Minh Co妹妹unist Youth Union.

Thanh said normal children are familiar with books from a very young age, helping them prepare for learning how to read.

Children with visual impairments also need to be familiar with tactile books to help develop skills, thereby being ready to learn Braille, she said.

“There were no made-in-Việt Nam tactile books until us, so blind children have to begin to learn how to read Braille without having experience with tactile books,” she said.

“Without these experiences, children lack the discovery and joy of reading,” she said.

Thanh and Hằng, with the support of Louise France, a British expert, who has  二0 years of experience teaching children with visual impairments in the United Kingdoms, have researched and developed made-in-Việt Nam tactile books for children with visual impairments with the hope to provide them with a tool to practice tactile skills to learn Braille more easily.

Tactile books

Tactile books, having five to  一0 pages, are specially designed and completely handmade on thick canvas or cardboard, she said.

They are designed with small objects and patterns attached to fabric pages, creating images, which can be felt by touch. The tactile pages have both printed and Braille text so that normal people could also read, she said.

The book is divided into four levels; A, B, C, D.

Level A is the easiest level, with tactile books using real objects attached to the pages of the book, along with familiar tunes for visually impaired children to touch and feel.

At level B, books present poems and stories, using simple tactile pictures and models. At level C, books present simple stories, using complex tactile pictures. At this level, the images have more complex symbols such as trees and motorbikes.

The most difficult is level D, the books present stories about the world outside the child's experience, using complex tactile pictures.

Children's books have to be suitable for children's psychology at all ages, Thanh said.

The team wrote their own stories or adapted them from published children's stories. For the adaptation, the team had to contact the author for permission. When adapting content to fit tactile books, the consent of the writers must also be obtained, she said.

Thanh said making a tactile book is difficult because, in addition to the story, it needs also images sewn onto the pages.

Visually impaired children will read books by touch. The more developed the child's touching skills, the greater the ability to visualise to understand the story and the messages from life through the pages of the book, she said.

Therefore, Thanh and her tea妹妹ates had to spend many years researching to understand the levels of touch ability of visually impaired children, thereby designing different books for children of different levels.

"Before us, no one in Việt Nam has researched and made tactile books, so relevant documents were not available in Vietnamese,” she said.

They had to research by foreign documents, she said.