The influence of braille literacy programme length on frequency of braille usage

Sa？etak A noticeable decline in braille usage, as well as in braille literacy in general, has been present in many countries since the 1980s. Although in Croatia there is no current formal data on braille literacy, organisations of blind people and professionals who work with visually impaired people confirm such decline in this country as well. Numerous studies state that there are various possible causes for such a negative trend. Use of residual vision, additional disabilities, technological development, lack of experts’ competencies, and an itinerant service model are just some of the possible reasons. The aim of this research is to establish whether the length of a braille literacy programme affects the usage of braille in the areas of educational activities, leisure time activities, daily living activities, and organisation and management activities. For the purpose of this research, conducted in 2016, an extensive questionnaire about usage of braille in those areas was created. The sample consisted of nineteen (N=19) braille-literate visually impaired high school students who were, at the time, attending public and residential schools in Croatia. The collected data were analysed using the quantitative methodology: robust discriminative analysis and univariate analysis of variance. The results show that there was a statistically significant difference among the groups of students who attended braille literacy programme fewer than 6 months, between 6 and 12 months, and over 12 months in every tested area. The best results in all areas were shown by students with the longest period of time in a braille literacy programme. Braille-literate visually impaired adolescents in Croatia use braille mostly for educational purpose (academic literacy), while functional literacy remains problematic since they rarely use braille in those activities (daily living, leisure time, organisation and management)