Today we dropped Marty the brailler at the UPS store to send him on his way to the 6th and final child who will get to test out Marty for a few weeks. You can read about this child at the bottom of this page:
http://www.wonderbaby.org/articles/backpacking-smart-brailler-event
Clay took Marty to summer camp at his elementary school the past few weeks where his braille teacher met him for a few sessions of braille practice. It was great having the SMARTbrailler be part of this. In just a few weeks Clay has really adjusted to having a brailler with audio feedback. It will be difficult to give that up and go back to the old style non-verbal brailler in September. The new brailler has really encouraged Clay to communicate -- he wrote my brother a birthday card, and he wrote me notes on his activities one day that I was out of town. (Roasting marshmallows in July, Clay?!) It will also be difficult for me to not have Marty around, as I have been using the brailler for my course, Introduction to Braille. It's been great to have something everyone in the family can use.
Yesterday Clay had a few friends over to see what he has been doing in braille. He showed them some non-contracted letters and they each enjoyed seeing him spell out their names. His buddy Nick has been trying to figure out how he could learn enough braille to write Clay notes! Here is a short video of Clay giving a demonstration. (My video skills are about as good as my braille skills, so forgive me!) I think a great feature of this brailler is the pre-loaded app that gives letter and word quizzes. They encourage independent use of the brailler, and with the cheering voices, they are also fun. They are perfect for children learning to read and spell, exactly right for a child Clay's age.
We will post again once the contest to win Marty goes live in September.
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