. If her mother has access to a braille writer you can get a clear adhesive paper and braille any book for her. This also allows other children to read with her as they can still see the words and pictures. You might ask her mother to put you in contact with the child's TVI. He or she might be willing to produce the braille for you to use, she could also give you some idea on how to make the class room more accessible. You can also try to incorporate tactile crafts into your lessons .

Well, we made an app for Android called:

$1

The original intent was for it to be the blind man's drawing tool - where they could draw with finger, and then feel what they have drawn.

This arose out of some discussions we were having in the eyes-free google group (which is a group for blind and visually impaired android users - we were there because we interact with them to get one of our audio recorder apps to be accessible for blind users as well - since it is designed to be used for heads-up use).

Anyway, with all that context out of the way, the app itself does not in practice work that well. The problem is that we used vibration of the phones to simulate the buzz you feel when your fingerprints moves ridge by ridge over a texture.

That was the intention - to make a phone give the sense of haptic feedback or tactile feedback similar to swiping your finger over a piece of paper or a textured surface.

In practice it doesn't work that well, because phone vibration modules are not that responsive, and are usually just oscillators.

HOWEVER, there is potential if we were to use audio feedback, where the audio were to mimic the sense you get from feeling a textured surface - well like a phonograph needle moving over a textured surface type of thing - that could be done. But android's audio latency is not so great (compared to iphone). So it remains to be seen how perfect that could be made.

But we had several users on the eyes-free google group test it out, and some of them reported they were able to write simple letters and recognize them by feeling.

Later we also got feedback that one of the users there had used it to instruct blind children - i.e. had them draw things, and then used an embossing printer to print out the stuff. And then had them feel that actual print with their fingers.

So anyway, it is something you could try. And it is free.


Another thing you could try if the child can understand English - is our app:

$1

This is the app we were saying were interacting with the eyes-free google group about.

This is probably the best audio recorder app available on android for blind users.

Our next app (currently in Alpha Test) is already being tested by blind users (it has background recording, MP3 recording etc.) - and they say they are making it their main audio recorder app.

However, for your purpose you can use the current app whose link is above - it doesn't have background recording.

But what you could do is use it to have the child record sounds and play them back - it has a convenient and centrally located buttons.

NOTE: for blind users, you would use TalkBack, the screen reader for the blind which is included with Android devices - Settings - Accessibility - TalkBack - turn it ON. Not sure if an autistic child will find the sounds that makes disconcerting or not, since TalkBack makes a lot of noises like that.

But one feature these apps have is Ear Detect. In this, you can record just by moving phone to ear, and moving it away to pause. Then you can play it back. You can also flip phone so it is face down to record, and face up to pause etc.

Perhaps a better one may have been one where it played back immediately after you moved the phone away from ear.

For that you could try some of the Talking Tom Cat type of apps, which will speak back what is said (but in a usually higher pitched voice so it sounds like a cat I guess).

Anyway, just some ideas.

I don't have a whole lot of experience dealing with adapting things like coloring books, when I was younger I never really did much with those kinds of things because of my difficulties with contrast. What you are doing sounds good, although I don't know how much she would get out of coloring in something that she still wouldn't be able to see. The raised lines sound good in principal, but she probably won't be able to experience what she did. One idea that comes to mind is getting different materials with different textures and you could stencil out the shapes of the elements of the picture with the different material and then she could put it together like a puzzle. It would be tactile and hopefully more engaging.

 

Like I said, I have no clue if that's a good idea or not, it's just the first thing that comes to mind.

 

With regards to adding Braille with glue, I think your suspicions are correct. I am not a Braille reader and only have extremely limited experience with it, I have enough central vision to read large print with adjusted contrast, but for the people I know who do read Braille the spacing is important. I would recommend looking into one of three options.

 

The first is getting an embosser and then you can use $1 to convert plain text to embosser friendly Braille. The one problem with this is that embossers can get quite expensive and I don't know what your budget looks like.

 

The second is to get a manual Braille typewriter. I got mine for free from a family friend, I'm sure you could find a local organization that would be willing to donate one.

 

The last is to try your hand at manually embossing with a stylus and guide. This will take the longest and it gets a little weird because you have to emboss in reverse on the other side of the paper. A TVI who was working with me as an intern for her Masters in Orientation and Mobility was explaining that this was one of the more difficult things for her to master. If you want to take that on, more power to you.

 

Of course you can also contact the publisher of the book and see if they offer a Braille version or ask if they can direct you to a company who produces Braille versions of their book and circumvent all of this extra work.

 

Hope this helps, let me know if I missed anything/ you have more questions.