Supporting braille readers in reading and comprehending mathematical expressions and equations

Abstract

Braille readers create an overview of an expression by reading one braille character after another or listening to a voice saying the expression or equation aloud. The specific skills and knowledge that mathematics teachers need to assist this complicated process are often lacking. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of an intervention consisting of a course focused on braille display support in combination with Text-To-Speech synthesizer for mathematics teachers on the mathematical performances of braille readers. A quasi-experimental approach was taken to answer this question. Five teachers of an experimental group received the intervention whereas the teacher of the control group did not. Both the experimental group, consisting of 10 braille readers, and the control group, consisting of five braille readers, took a pre- and post-test. The results indicated that there was a very small positive effect of the intervention.