Vietnam researchers develop books for visually impaired children
WVR/VNA - Trinh Thu Thanh and Nguyen Thi Hang, two researchers from the National Centre for Special Education Research under the Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences, have been given an award for the best project of the "knowledge for education" programme, for developing made-in-Vietnam tactile books for visually impaired children.
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| Visually impaired children are excited about tactile books. (Photo: tienphong.vn) |
Therefore, Thanh and her teammates had to spend many years researching to understand the levels of touching ability of visually impaired children, thereby designing different books for children of different levels.
"Before us, no one in Vietnam had researched and made tactile books, so relevant documents were not available in Vietnamese,” she said.
They had to research through foreign documents, she said.
After five years of research, experimentation and making the books, Thanh’s team and volunteers only made 50 tactile books, partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, making a tactile book requires meticulousness, so they could not make it fast.
Normally, they need two weeks to make a tactile book, she said.
Thanh and her teammates contacted a number of deaf people to hire them to sew pictures for the books.
Thanh said deaf people are very skilful, so they can help to make tactile books faster.
After finishing the books, Thanh needed the first evaluation, so she contacted parents whose children are visually impaired, to send them books for the children to use and make assessments.
At first, some parents were not keen, but the team never gave up.
“We persuaded them day after day,” she said.
Then, parents who witnessed their children reading the tactile books and changing every day started to think differently and began enthusiastically supporting the team, she said.
Thanh said she and her team have planned to establish a library of tactile books for children with visual impairments this year.
The library will have a space for children with visual impairments to read on site. Children can also borrow books to read at home, she said.
Moreover, Thanh said she and her team also wrote detailed instructions on how to make a tactile book so that schools for children with visual impairments can make their own books for their students.
Associate Professor Nguyen Xuan Thanh, head of the Secondary Education Department under the Ministry of Education and Training told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that he highly appreciates the idea of making the first made-in-Vietnam tactile books for children with visual impairments.
Thanh also praised the way that the team provided instructions on how to make a tactile book, so that schools for children with visual impairments can make their own books for their students.
(Source: VNA)
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