At the end of January, she'll head to the East Coast, traveling to Washington, D.C., and Boston. Many people like Sanden and Ching don't learn these skills as children, Bashin said. And it can severely affect their ability to get a job in adulthood. Braille literacy is one of the best correlations with employment, Bashin said. Although Braille literacy among the blind is about 10 percent, the Braille literacy rate is 93 percent among blind people who are employed.
Braille is a code of raised dots that allows the blind to read by touch.
Invented in the early 19th century, Braille was slow to catch on. But by the 1950s, the rate of Braille literacy among the blind was around 60 percent. Then, in the 1960s, the culture changed. Braille was thought to be clunky and slow. Hearing is not the same as reading, even when the reading is done with the fingers instead of the eyes.