do completely blind people see words in their head as braille? or do they see them as letters or do they just not see words in their heads? asking for people who became blind later on in life. im not trying to be rude or stupid by asking this. i am just genuinely confused about this 😭
mavedenyz5 points1y ago
Losing vision isn’t the same as losing your memory. As someone who lost most of their useable vision recently, I still picture words in my head as letters because that’s how I learned them. It comes in handy learning braille because braille relies on memorization especially with that placement. I like to look for similarities with the letter and the corresponding braille letter so I can better remember it in braille.
Also, not everyone who is blind or visually impaired is completely blind.
AllHarlowsEve5 points1y ago
When I'm typing, I sometimes get flashes of the braille symbols I'm typing, but in general it's more like light blue text, ice blue maybe, on a black background, looking like subtitles. It comes and goes in rapid flashes, which wasn't a thing when I could see.
I, when just listening, get very vivid mental images and sometimes subtitles, but those are less common.
BenandGracie4 points1y ago
I have been totally blind since a young age, and I picture the braille symbols in my head. Strangely enough, I sometimes have to write a word out in braille in order to see if it is spelled right.
[deleted]2 points1y ago
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BenandGracie3 points1y ago
Of course, I use a slate and stylus, a brailler, or braille display. You do know what braille is right? It is a reading and *writing* system.
NoClops1 points1y ago
I’m wondering if you might be confused by the wording of the comment. When they say they “write “braille, they are not saying they’re using a pen and simply making ink dots on a paper. Just like we use words like watching movies, we use words like writing braille. Writing braille for us means using a metal plate that has the braille cell indented into it, and you use a little pointy metal piece to push the paper into those divots. This creates the traditionally raised braille on the paper. I hope this explains it well enough. As an aside, we can also type braille using a machine called a Brailer. It’s similar to an old fashion typewriter, but it’s designed with different buttons
Fridux4 points1y ago
I tend to picture everything my screen-reader says in my head, including words and symbols, and actually read from the images that are formed. I do understand that this creates a huge mental drag because I'm spending lots of mental resources into something completely useless, but given that I lived with some sight for 32 years I can't really help it.
[deleted]3 points1y ago
It is different for each blind person. No two minds are exactly alike.
throwaway793620 [OP]3 points1y ago
yeah i assumed that. that’s why i was hoping more than one person would reply which happened so yeah 😭
NoClops1 points1y ago
I’m not sure you mentioned this directly, but I assume you are sighted? This is not related to your original question, but something I always find funny and it came up here. For people who use screenreaders, there is a description attached to each emoji that tells us what it is. The emoji you used is “loudly crying face“. I can’t tell you how many times people use emojis that they think are positive emotions for a negative remark or vice versa… I just chuckle a little inside because sighted people have to go off assumptions of what the emoji looks like, I guess?
TechnicalPragmatist1 points1y ago
Totally blind from a really young age like 8 but before I didn’t have much vision to begin with, never in my life read print didn’t ever had good enough vision and large print wasn’t good enough. It had to be really really large.
Been most of my life though.
Yeah, I see the letters in my head as braille and sometimes even think of them as being felt tactilly or even kinesthetically.
NoClops1 points1y ago
I went blind in my early 20s. I visualize the printed word, in the text of a typical book. Sometimes I do this intentionally because I feel like I forget how words are spelled since I haven’t seen them in so long.
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