Guide
Concept development through tactile graphics: Duck example
A swimming duck with gills and fins? Help your student build real concepts with tactile graphics!
Years ago, I worked with three totally blind first and second grade students who were learning about ducks. Their classes had incubated duck eggs and were waiting for them to hatch. The students described ducks as, “Ducks have two webbed feet, a flat, wide bill, short necks and round bodies with feathers. They swim in the water, waddle on land and can fly. Ducks make a ‘quack’ sound.” Sounds great, right? However, when given a life-like representation of a duck (complete with textured webbed feet, flat, wide bill, real feathers, etc.) the students had no idea what it was. When a real adult duck (who was tame!) was available to touch, again, no concept of what it was. The students could identify feathers, but not “webbed feet” or “flat, wide bill”. When I asked a blind 6th grader to describe how a duck swims, the student used words like “gills” and “fins” and did not realize that the duck typically floats on top of the water diving down into the water to reach food. In this example, the students echoed the correct words, but lacked the concept of a duck.
Progression of tactile images
While hands-on with real objects is ideal, there are many objects that cannot or should not be touched. Some things are too big (elephant) or too scary (tarantula) or simply not available. Students with vision can look at a picture or watch a video to develop knowledge about objects. Students with visual impairments are given verbal descriptions – but it is important to check that the student truly understands the words that are used to describe the object. One way to support verbal descriptions for real items that cannot be touched, is to provide tactile representations. Keep in mind that there is a big difference between touching a real duck and exploring a raised line outline of a simple duck shape! Students should sequentially be introduced to and learn how to interpret raised line drawings. This includes the ability to create their own tactile graphics. The natural progression of how to introduce tactile resources to students who are blind or low vision is:
Real Objects > Models of Real Objects > Tactile Graphics Representing Real Objects or Symbols (including braille or print words) Representing Real Objects > 2D/Raised Line Outline. Students should also create their own tactile graphics using various mediums.
In the case of the duck, ideally the student can explore a real duck, then a realistic model of a duck. This might be a plastic model or even a stuffed animal with realistic duck features. As the student transfers the concept of a duck to paper, the next step might be to use a feather as a symbol to represent a duck (or a felt outline might be used for another animal) in a tactile drawing for a read aloud or emerging reader book. As the student’s tactile skills progresses, a 2-dimensional raised line outline of a duck with the distinguishing characteristics can be used – initially a simplistic outline drawing. These simple tactile images provide hints to emerging readers and are engaging to students! Later, more detailed raised line drawings are used to provide additional concepts such as comparing a duck to an eagle or learning about how a duck survives in its ecosystem.
The raised line outlines, especially the more detailed raised line graphics, provide critical information that students can use to learn concepts. Example: In the Bird Song Book and Bird-Related Activities post, there is an activity about different types of bird beaks and the purpose for each of these beak types. The activity includes raised line graphics of these beaks.
How does tactile graphics tie into technology?
Blind and low vision students should have access to paper tactile graphics and are using these tactile graphics to build spatial concepts. Spatial concepts and mental mapping the layout of a digital page is important in order to efficiently navigate and interact with items on the screen. Transferring from paper tactile graphics to a flat screen can be challenging; tactile overlays can help bridge the gap. The Tactile to Digital Part 2: Math Melodies post uses the same tactile graphic progression mentioned above with a video that shows how to incorporate models or real objects, then symbols representing real objects and finally a raised outline of a grid overlay to demonstrate what is displayed on the screen in an accessible math game.
Shapes
To be clear, when possible, students should be introduced to real objects. These real objects should be paired to models of real objects and then tactile graphics of real objects; and, even young students should have opportunities to draw or create their own tactile graphics. This starts in preschool! A student may be introduced to a toy ball, which is basically a round sphere. A wooden 3D round sphere (from a math kit) can be used to represent that ball. Then, a felt circle (basically a flat, 2D ball) can replace the 3D wooden ball. Then a raised outline of a circle is used. TSVIs use this progression all the time and preschool students learn to recognize and differentiate between circles, squares, triangles and other shapes. Educators pair the real shape or object with models and outlines. However, the last step is often missing for students who are blind or low vision – DRAWING the shape. Keep in mind that students will be required to draw images and diagrams for higher math such as geometric images, charts, graphs and plotting points. Drawing skills are a huge part of the preschool and kindergarten curriculum and are critical foundation skills for students who are blind or low vision!
Creating tactile images and drawing
Students who are blind or low vision should have a variety of textures and tools to use for creating tactile images and should be given regular opportunities to use their imagination and to create graphics.
Check out the wonderful Tactile Rich Environments series by Jessica McDowell, especially the Tactile Drawing: Expanding Creativity and Social Inclusion post.
Students with vision often learn to draw shapes by tracing dotted lines that outline the shape. When learning to draw shapes, students who are blind or low vision can trace around an object using a tool that creates a tactile line before free-hand drawing the shape.
Drawing with a crayon on a bumpy surface will create a textured line. There are a variety of tools and kits available that create raised lines.
Want to learn more about tactile graphic tools available for educators and students? Check out the Tactile Graphic Tools post.
Additional thoughts
There are numerous concept building posts on Paths to Technology that include tactile graphics. Many of these posts are geared for younger students and can be expanded to build strong concepts for older students. Posts like the Butterfly series start with tactile graphics of caterpillars and progress to the life cycle of a butterfly. If the student’s class is learning about the butterfly life cycle, pre-teach with tactile graphics the egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis) and butterfly. Take a look at the Tactile Graphics Library for free downloadable images for tactile graphic machines or that can be used as a template for educators to hand-create tactile graphics. Images in the Tactile Graphic Library are associated with posts that contain lessons/activities for that image.
By Diane Brauner
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