来源：《今日心理学》
日期：2021年1月17日
LEGO is rolling out a new toy to increase literacy in blind and partially sighted children: Braille Bricks. More than just a construction game, each of these colorful blocks is made into a letter, number, or punctuation mark of the braille writing system.
乐高公司正在推出一种新玩具来提高盲童和弱视儿童的读写能力：盲文积木。它不仅仅是一个搭建游戏，每个色彩斑斓的方块都被塑造成盲文书写系统的字母、数字或标点符号。
LEGOs and braille are, in many ways, a match made in heaven. A basic LEGO block is a rectangle topped with six raised dots in a 3 x 2 pattern. A braille letter is formed from an arrangement of up to six raised dots in a 3 x 2 pattern.
乐高积木和盲文在很多方面都是天作之合。一块儿典型的乐高积木是个矩形，上面有6个凸起的点，形状为3x2。一个盲文字母是由6个凸点以3乘2的方式排列而成的。
Braille Bricks, which spent two years in testing, were dreamed up by the blind community itself. The Danish Association of the Blind pitched the idea to the LEGO Foundation (the charitable arm of the LEGO Group) in 2011, and the Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind in Brazil made their own prototype in 2017.
“盲文积木”花了两年时间进行测试，是盲人群体自己构想出来的。2011年，丹麦盲人协会向乐高基金会(乐高集团的慈善机构)提出了这一想法，2017年，巴西的多利娜·诺威尔盲人基金会也制作了自己的原型。
Braille literacy has declined as technologies like audio books and screen-readers, which recite the text displayed on a computer or smartphone screen, have become more common. Advocates, though, say that auditory reading methods like these should complement braille, not replace it.
随着有声读物和屏幕阅读器等能语音合成技术越来越普遍，盲人的盲文读写能力有所下降。不过，盲文的拥护者说，像这样的听觉阅读方法应该是对盲文的补充，而不是取代盲文。
“For blind people, braille is literacy,” says Sean Randall, an IT instructor at New College Worcester, a school for the blind in the UK. Randall is himself blind. “The only other real option for someone who’s got no sight is to listen, and by listening you lose a lot of spelling, grammar, punctuation.”
“对盲人来说，盲文就是识字，”英国盲人学校新伍斯特学院的IT讲师肖恩·兰德尔说。兰德尔自己就是盲人。“对于视力差的人来说，唯一的选择就是倾听，但只靠听，你会忘记很多拼写、语法和标点符号。”
Research suggests that guided play is an effective teaching tool for primary-aged students because most children learn best when they are actively engaged, interacting with others, and see meaning in what they’re doing. LEGO’s Braille Bricks can be used for play-based education in phonetics, spelling, and mathematics. For younger children who aren't yet ready to read, the blocks encourage the development of motor coordination.
研究表明，引导式游戏对小学生是一种有效的教学工具，因为大多数孩子在积极参与、与他人互动、理解自己所做事情的意义时学得最好。乐高的盲文积木可以用于基于游戏的语音、拼写和数学教育。对于还没有准备好阅读的学龄前儿童来说，积木可以促进他们的运动协调能力。
Each brick is marked with the corresponding printed letter, number, or symbol so that blind and sighted children can enjoy them together. They’re also fully compatible with LEGO’s standard bricks, creating even more opportunities for imaginative play.
每块积木上都标有相应的印刷字母、数字或符号，以便盲童和视力正常的儿童一起玩儿。它们也完全兼容乐高的标准积木，为发挥想象力创造更多的机会。
“Children dislike making mistakes,” says Sue Lock, a mathematics teacher at New College Worcester. “If you’re using a braille machine, your mistakes are there, written large. Children love being able to make something, unmake it if it’s wrong, and make it again, and that is the important thing that Braille Bricks does.”
“孩子们不喜欢犯错，”新伍斯特学院的数学老师苏·洛克说。“如果你用的是盲文机器，你的错误就在那里，而且写得很大。孩子们喜欢做出来的东西，如果做错了就拆开，然后再做出来，这就是盲文积木的重要作用。”