The year 2009 marked the 200th anniversary of Louis Braille's birth. Part of signifying this event was reporting the declining use of Braille in the literacy of children who are blind or visually impaired, termed a "Braille crisis." The crisis described was one in which children requiring Braille instruction were not able to get timely and appropriate training. An additional implication was that Braille instruction is needed for the majority of children with vision loss. This approach is at least partly based on the classification the National Federation of the Blind makes, which suggests that people fall into 1 of 2 categories: normally sighted or blind. Visual impairment is not part of its classification method. The purpose of this editorial is to encourage practitioners to not place too heavy an emphasis on Braille. In 2011, the blind are no longer a heterogeneous group as they may have been decades and centuries ago. Today the blind are widely diverse, both in depth of visual impairment as well as the age at onset of vision loss. They range from a minority who are blind from birth to a majority with age-related vision loss. The latter monumentally outnumbers the former, and experience shows that those with age-related vision loss rarely use Braille as a reading system.
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