Written by: Meryl Alper
Abstract: When applied to a particular disability, the terms “technology” and “literacy” take on many layered meanings. This complexity underscores the lack of empirical research on the combined areas of young children with visual impairments, emergent literacy, and assistive technology. This article specifically examines theoretical overlap between approaches to the early literacy education of children with blindness and visual impairments and the new media literacies (NML) framework (Jenkins, 2006) in order to better account for how expanding notions of literacy and pre-literacy are enmeshed with the affordances of specific technologies. After situating Braille and literacy in a transhistorical and multinational dialogue about children, technology, and innovation, I explore how the 21st century NML skill of “transmedia navigation” manifests in an ongoing methodological, philosophical, and cultural debate regarding the role of technology in potentially contributing to declining Braille literacy rates in the US. I conclude by suggesting future areas of research into best practices for promoting emergent traditional, technological, and new media literacies among children with visual impairments.
Keywords: Braille, Children with disabilities, new media literacies, visual impairment