Haptic Glove Teaches Braille Passively

Jun-28-14 Researchers have created a glove that can help the wearer learn to read Braille, even while doing an unrelated activity.

The glove, an evolution of the piano-teaching glove developed at the same university, is based around 'passive haptic learning,' and uses vibrations to help teach motor skills without the person needing to focus on their hands. To carry out their Braille learning study, the team created pairs of the gloves with motors stitched into the knuckles. The motors were designed to vibrate in a way that mimicked the sequence for typing a Braille phrase, while audio cues let the wearer know which letters were being produced.

In tests, volunteers who received both the vibrations and audio cues performed better at remembering the Braille phrase, and also demonstrated the ability to transfer their new knowledge to reading Braille.

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