--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Don Osborn" <dzo@...> wrote:

Have you looked at the Moon system? It is also British but predates
Braille. It is a 'full' orthography like Braille - simply put, an
alphabet that correspond to alphabetic orthography. It also has
grade one and two.

Because of the similarity of the shapes to letters of the alphabet,
it has some transfer from the roman alphabet and is considered
easier for those who become blind later in life to read. Somehow it
is supposed to be harder to produce. However, there is a moon
windows font from RNIB and the Moon system is being taught in
England.

I understand that Braille is quite hard to learn except, of course,
by children. I have seen a blind 8 year old girl, Chinese - English
bilingual, who could read faster in Braille than her sighted
classmates could read from a book. We had a teacher aid who typed
out all the stories in Braille but the girl read so fast it was hard
to keep her busy. However, she also wrote competnetly as well.

In contrast, one of my special students this year who is severely
hearing impaired, but has hearing aids which are supposed to
approximate normal hearing, can only read at a grade two level, at
11 years of age. She has a high IQ but is just learnig now the
phonological, syntactic and semantic skills which are prerequisite
to reading.

She is a great srtist drawing maps with contour clearly showing,
cartoons, and computer animations better than most adults.

Her chances of catching up in a hearing world are considered quite
good now so she hasn't learned sign. She may learn it as a social
skill later.

Suzanne McCarthy