Next Generation™ Perkins Brailler®
New Braillewriter is More Portable, Responsive, Quiet, and Durable
Nov 10, 2008
In October 2008, Perkins Products and the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) released the Next Generation™ Perkins Brailler®, an update of its original brailler built by David Abraham, who was a woodworking teacher at Perkins School for the Blind (Watertown, MA), in 1951.
A brailler is essentially a braille typewriter with six keys (corresponding to the six raised dots of the braille cell), a space key, backspace key, and return. The Perkins Brailler revolutionized braille literacy by making it easier for students, teachers, and transcribers to write braille. An estimated 330,000 braillers are in use in over 170 countries.
The new lightweight model is geared toward blind persons in the developing world (many of whom still write braille manually with a metal slate and stylus); its portability and easy touch design are already making it popular with young students and those with physical limitations.
Main Features of the Next Generation Perkins Brailler
The new Perkins Brailler features a metal frame inside a virtually indestructible polycarbonate shell in high-contrast colors (APH Blue, Raspberry and Midnight Blue). Its metal inner workings are unchanged. Improvements over the original include:
- Size: The new is smaller and 25% lighter
- Portability: An Easy-Grip handle makes for easier transport to and from school
- Efficiency: New “Gentle Touch” keys, an “Easy Erase” button, and paper tray make it easier to operate
- Sound: Lighter keystrokes reduce “crunching” noise.
David Morgan, general manager of Perkins Products, in conjunction with Product Development Technologies, Inc. (Chicago), designed the new machine based on extensive international user research. The machine is available in the US through APH for $650. An international launch is planned for early 2009.
The new machine, released two months after the National Federation of the Blind (NFB launched its Braille Readers Are Leaders initiative and three months before the Louis Braille bicentennial, is expected to further the cause of braille literacy around the world.
The NFB sees braille literacy as essential to independence and self-sufficiency: 70 percent of all blind people in the US are unemployed or underemployed compared with only 20 percent among braille users.
Braille users have declined in recent decades. Many blind people who lose their sight late in life never learn braille, while the advent of audiobooks, screen readers, and electronic text have eroded its use among the young.
Contact Marilyn Rea Beyer at the Perkins School for the Blind (617.972.7478) for more information on The Next Generation Perkins Brailler.
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