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American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections
Winter 2018
GRAPHICS AND ART
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The Hungry Fingers Way to Tactile
Graphics
by Boguslaw ("Bob") Marek
From the Editor: Boguslaw ("Bob") Marek, a retired professor of English, is director
of KUL KAN, the center for students with special needs at the John Paul II Catholic
University in Lublin, Poland. He founded Hungry Fingers, a small organization that
develops resources for children with visual impairments. For the past twenty years
he has focused on teaching English and on introducing tactile graphics to totally
blind learners. He has conducted workshops in Europe, the United States, the
United Arab Emirates, Australia, India, Nepal, Samoa, Singapore, Palau, and
Japan. In 2002 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II honored him with the Order of the
British Empire.
Few educators today question the importance of tactile graphics for blind children
and adults. However, two conflicting attitudes and approaches come into play. On
one hand it is often assumed that blind persons who have little or no memory of
vision cannot understand raised-line drawings and diagrams. On the other hand,
tactile adaptations of highly complex visual illustrations such as drawings,
photographs, and paintings sometimes are offered to blind persons on the
assumption that they will be able to interpret them effectively, simply by
exploring with their sensitive fingertips. In the first of these two approaches, the
use of tactile graphics is limited to highly simplified maps and drawings of basic
geometric shapes. The second approach, in which very complex graphics are
presented with little explanation, may discourage unprepared blind persons from
exploring raised images.
Sighted Conventions
Drawings and other kinds of visual graphics employ a range of "sighted
conventions" that must be explained to blind learners. Only with a knowledge of
these conventions can blind learners be expected to make sense of twodimensional combinations of lines and textures that represent three-dimensional
objects and the spatial relations between them. Due to insufficient explanation
and training, tactile graphics remains one of the most difficult areas in the
education of blind students. The difficulty persists even when high quality,
professionally designed raised diagrams are available.
A heartbreaking
comment from a
congenitally blind
adult contributor
to a tactile
graphics
discussion list
summarizes the
problem. "I
remember being
told that some set
of lines was
supposed to
represent a 3D
box," she wrote,
"and that the
reason I didn't
understand this is because I wasn't trying. So I tried and tried to come up with a
set of transformations that would take me from the real object to that flattened
thing. I've memorized a few of the simplest objects, but that's not the same as
understanding them."
The quotation refers to a situation from the writer's school days, but the problem
still exists for her. "Is there a blind beginner's guide to understanding 3D
drawings?" she wrote. "I'm serious."
In this article I will introduce a "tactile graphics primer" developed in Poland. I
hope that the solutions it offers will inspire parents and teachers to engage
children with visual impairments in educational and leisure activities involving
tactile graphics.
The Hungry Fingers Tactile Graphics Primer
Made up of several sets of tactile publications and resources, The Hungry Fingers
Tactile Graphics Primer was presented as a step-by-step course and was tested in
Poland over a period of several years. It proved highly effective in raising the
confidence of blind children with tactile drawings and diagrams. As an ultimate
test the primer was tried out in Nepal with a group of totally blind children and
teenagers. These children and teens had never before been given a chance to
explore or to make tactile drawings.
Introducing all of the components of the course would exceed the scope of this
short article. Therefore, I will limit myself to the essentials. I will discuss the first
steps in teaching about tactile graphics—geometric shapes, drawings of 3D
objects, drawing people, and introducing blind learners to the concept of a map.
First Things First
Understanding the relationship between actual objects and drawings that
represent them is one of the greatest challenges facing blind students as they
learn to "read" tactile drawings and diagrams. The student must build confidence
through simpler, introductory tasks before this relationship can be understood.
Straight, curved, and zigzag lines made with a stylus on paper or a thin sheet of
plastic are the first steps in building a tactile vocabulary. This vocabulary is
necessary for understanding new concepts and more complex drawings.
Given the opportunity, most blind children eagerly engage in drawing, often with
surprisingly good results. Starting with meaningless doodles, children soon learn
that the tactile lines they produce can represent rain, grass, or a fence. One child
commented that his maze of lines going in all directions represented an afternoon
at a shopping center.
Responsibility for tactile education must not be delegated exclusively to the
schools. Blind children need as many chances as possible to explore and make
tactile drawings at home. Drawing can enhance orientation and mobility and daily
living skills, and it can be a leisure activity for the whole family.
When a child slides her hand up the door frame and then along the threshold, she
may easily grasp the concepts of "vertical" and "horizontal." However, she still
may struggle to understand these concepts in a tactile drawing. If raised vertical
and horizontal lines are drawn on a sheet of paper and taped to the wall, the child
will have no problem understanding them. Once the drawing is placed on the
table, the vertical line is the one that "runs away" from the child, while the line
parallel to her body is horizontal.
Such basic exercises are an effective introduction to other concepts, such as
"diagonal" and "parallel." They can help the child discover that three lines can
make a triangle, or that a square can be divided into, or built from, other
geometric shapes—triangles, rectangles, or smaller squares. The "Shape
Detective" series presents activities involving tactile drawings of lines and shapes.
It is accompanied by the "Space Organizer," a wooden frame and a set of magnetic
wooden geometric shapes. These materials make the introduction of tactile
graphics to blind learners entertaining and stress free.
This simple resource, along with a supply of embossable plastic and non-slip
silicon mats, made a tremendous difference for blind university students in
Pokhara, Nepal, and for a group of blind children in Humla, a remote village in
northwest Nepal. They opened access to subjects that had been available only to a
limited extent or absent from the students' education altogether. The following
comments made by Nepali students are probably the best description of their
reaction to their first encounter with tactile graphics: "All I was taught at school
about geometry was that it was a branch of mathematics." "I have heard the word
drawing before, but only now [do] I understand what it means."
From Objects to Drawings of Objects
Understanding that lines and shapes can represent things is a necessary
prerequisite to understanding drawings. Drawings are defined as two-dimensional
representations of three-dimensional objects. A sighted person probably will not
have problems recognizing a drawing of a table represented by a horizontal line
and two vertical lines extending from it toward the bottom edge of the page. For
one blind child, however, the drawing meant nothing more than three lines. Asked
to draw a table, this child produced a rectangle (representing the table top) and
four legs, represented by short lines extending from the corners. It was a perfect
reconstruction of the way he explored a real table.
To help explain the concept of a projection, we developed a Hungry Fingers
"Transfograph." It consisted of a simple resource transforming a set of objects into
simple outlines. Six wooden models of various pieces of furniture slide into slots
cut out in exchangeable box lids. Only a front or side view of a table, chair, bed,
desk, refrigerator, or chest of drawers is revealed. The Transfograph helps the
child understand why it is possible to draw a table with only three lines, one for
the edge of the table top and two for the front legs. The child can recognize why
the other two legs are "invisible," and therefore need not be drawn.
The usefulness of the Transfograph as a tool for explaining the relation between
objects and drawings was confirmed by users in several countries. Its effectiveness
with totally blind Nepali learners, complete beginners with tactile graphics, is
particularly promising. After just one session, all of the students were able to draw
a table and a chair, the two models of furniture used during training. They also
provided evidence that they understood the concept of an outline by producing
drawings of a bed (not used in the training) and of a chair viewed from the back.
After a training session with the remaining models, all of the students made
successful drawings of new objects of their choice. One of these drawings, a
rectangle with a small square in each corner, initially was not recognized by the
trainer. It turned out to be a drawing of a table viewed from underneath!
Drawing a Person
"I can only draw and
recognize a drawing of
a person standing, but
not when someone is
doing something."
These words from a
congenitally blind
Polish child gave us the
idea of adding
"Fleximan" to the set
of resources used with
the tactile graphics
primer. This flat stick
figure can be arranged
on a magnetic board to
represent a person
who is standing,
running, kneeling, or bending down. It serves as an effective prompt to help blind
students understand drawings of someone performing these actions. Fleximan
also has proved useful in raising blind learners' awareness of their own bodies.
One Nepali boy had no problem copying a fairly complex pose taken by Fleximan.
Later photos confirm his impressive progress in drawing a person before and after
a session with Fleximan. He moved from drawing a small circle (the head) and a
few lines scattered around it (arms, legs, and hair) to an easily recognizable
drawing of a man.
When working with younger children, we preceded our Fleximan sessions with a
tactile activity book in which a drawing of a teddy bear appears one step at a time.
A wooden magnetic puzzle gives the child a chance to assemble pieces into the
flat image of a teddy bear. This puzzle image works as an intermediate stage
between a real teddy bear and a drawing. It was very encouraging to watch the
joy of the Nepali children as they drew teddy bears and people in all kinds of
situations.
Getting Ready for Maps
Understanding that spatial relations between objects can be represented
graphically is a necessary step to understanding the concept of a map. Without
this understanding borders, rivers, and cities will remain mere lines and dots, with
no relation to cardinal directions or parts of the world.
An approach that has proved extremely effective in introducing blind children to
maps was developed at the Laski Special School in Poland. It starts by building the
child's confidence with spatial relations between objects within an easily
manageable space, such as a placemat. A plate, cup, spoon, fork, and knife are
presented to the child. Next the child is introduced to tactile drawings of these
objects in various configurations. This system provides an irreplaceable
opportunity for introducing a wide range of spatial concepts and allows the child
to draw his first "maps."
Next the child moves from the drawing of a breakfast set for one person to
creating tactile representations of a table ready for dinner for two, three, or more
persons. These drawings prepare the child for floor plans of rooms and buildings,
from which they can make a painless, stress-free move to maps of larger areas—
the area around the school or the child's home, maps of cities, countries, and the
world. "Getting Ready for Maps 1" and "Getting Ready for Maps 2" are the two
tactile publications that complete the set of resources in The Hungry Fingers
Tactile Graphics Primer mentioned earlier in this article.
The Value of Tactile Graphics
There is no time or space here to enumerate all of the benefits of raising blind
learners' confidence with tactile drawings and diagrams. I would like to mention
just a few important points.
•
•
•
•
Tactile graphics can help children understand concepts that are difficult to
demonstrate or explain with words. They can help the child imagine objects
that are too large or too small to be explored with the hands. They also can
present information when models of objects are not available.
Confidence with floor plans and street maps is crucial for a blind person's
independence.
Success in understanding tactile diagrams raises a student's motivation to
explore the more complex graphics used in all school subjects.
Confidence with tactile graphics is a prerequisite to developing blind
persons' interest in and access to works of art. These may include
adaptations of paintings that, for a long time, have remained inaccessible.
•
Last, but not least, confidence with tactile graphics offers blind persons a
chance to try out their creativity and to explore their own potential as
artists.
For more information about The Hungry Fingers Tactile Graphics Primer, please
consult the website www.hungryfingers.com.