Objective: To outline the ways in which learning materials can be made available to blind children

• Preparing learning materials takes time. Therefore it is best to plan well in advance in order not to disadvantage the child who is visually impaired even further. Get in touch with the special school, organization for the blind and visually impaired, community based rehabilitation worker, or person in your community with braille transcriptions skills to support you.
• In some cases it may be easier to give a blind child a short one-to-one session when introducing new material, rather than preparing written materials in modified print, synthetic speech or real audio, or braille.
• Digital material in Word or HTML can be easily converted into braille, modified print, or synthetic speech with simple architecture through, for example, the use of the Easy Converter Express or other software, although cost can be prohibitive.
• Although there must be proper emphasis on written learning materials, the whole visual world is a set of resources for children who can see. For the blind child, this deficit can be made up to some extent by access, via mobile phone, to the world’s audio broadcasting and to written material on the internet, accessed through a mobile phone.
• Raised line drawings are of much less value to blind children than is frequently asserted; they have very limited use compared with the creation of solid, three-dimensional objects.
• The real challenge is an understanding of moving objects; children with any residual vision should be given supervised access to television and DVD. Totally blind children require as much real life tactile experience (see Module 9) as possible.
• A faded enlarged copy is NOT very useful for a child with low vision. Better contrast is possible if the ink is darker.
• If it is not possible to reproduce learning materials for the blind child identical to those of sighted peers, equivalent material is better than nothing.
• As materials preparation frequently involves digital technology, DO NOT give up if you get stuck. Find somebody who can help.