The Braille Institute

What an amazing experience for Dylan and myself to have the opportunity to visit the Orange County Braille Institute in Anaheim as field trip for Cub Scouts. The kids had so much fun learning how blind people read, watch movies, tell time (talking watches), and even play games. My favorite was the Monopoly board all in braille. Also, we got to watch part of a movie, the Lion King, which had been formatted for the blind. The movies are narrated so that even in a scene where there is no talking the descriptive narration allows a blind person to see the Savannah in a way that I found almost better than watching the movie.

We got to meet Wayne, a man who slowly starting losing his sight in his late 20's, and is now almost completely blind. Wayne also brought his sight dog, Tuesday, who was the highlight for the boys.

The large braille board was very cool too. We learned about how each letter is made up of six positions. The positions that do not have bumps are just as important as the ones that do.