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WHAT SPECIAL KIND OF BOOKS DO WE NEED?

Cushla in Cushla and her books had lots of children's books, because her parents were acquainted with this literature. Handicapped children - whatever their handicap - are fortunate when they have parents or teachers or staff personal who love children's books themselves, or, as a matter of course, contact children's libraries. A good many of the usual picture books and collections of lullabyes and rhymes and songs and adventures can also be used for handicapped children. In some countries catalogues are made with titles specially recommended for mentally retarded, deaf or other groups of language retarded children (Australia, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, USA, for example).

But even if we can use many ordinary children's books, there will be a need for books specially made for handicapped children. If they cannot see they will need books in braille, talking books and tactile books. Other children who are partially sighted need books with large print. Deaf children, for whom sign language is their own language, need books with sign language. Mentally retarded children and other children with delayed speech and language need very simple picture books. Our many reading retarded children need easy reading books, so they can feel that their striving with books will be worthwhile.

Books in braille

It is easy to understand that children who cannot see pictures and print in books need literature especially made for them. We have had braille ever since the Frenchman Louis Braille, who himself was blind, invented the system of writing a hundred and fifty years ago. His system consists of six raised points on paper, from which it is possible to achieve 63 different permutations. They can be used for letters, figures, musical notation, and other sings.

Many countries have children's books in braille, however these books are more often than not produced and owned by organizations for the blind and are not to be found in public libraries. Children's books in braille should, of course, be represented there along with books for other children. Catalogues and books lists show that books produced in braille are mostly books for adults. It is not surprising, as there are far more blind adults than blind children. But it is during childhood when our habits are formed and we receive our fundamental training that we are most easily influenced. Suitable training, which is necessary to enable the blind to manage for themselves in the communities where they live should include the enjoyment of children's books.

Those who are blind from early childhood before they can talk are, of course, at a greater disadvantage than those who lose their sight later on, as they have no visual memories to support them. Speech will therefore be far more difficult. Children with impaired vision need books to gain experience and to increase their vocabulary.

Talking books

In addition to books in braille we have talking books. Since tape recorders and cassette players have come into daily use in many countries, blind people now have a much greater possibility for a better choice of reading material.

In order to enable blind children to benefit from children's books there must be a wide choice of talking books. They can listen to these books together with their friends who are not blind, thus lessening the distance between them.

Talking books are also of great significance for other groups of disabled people with reading problems and physically handicapped persons who cannot hold a book. For the deaf - blind - who are perhaps the loneliest of all - books in braille are the only possible reading material. For most blind people, both children and adults, books in braille and talking books will supplement each other. As for fiction, there is a tendency to prefer talking books, while textbooks, educational literature and reference books are preferable in braille. It is important to have plenty of books in braille for blind children who are learning to read although they should not have to wait until they can manage to read books in braille to enjoy children's books. They need to listen to books just as much as other children. Children's books in braille are also necessary so that parents who are blind can read to their children.

Tactile books

Most of us are so unimaginative that we do not immediately understand that blind and partially sighted children also need picture books, just as do other children. Those whose sight is not too poor can benefit from ordinary picture books, provided the contrasts are sharp enough and the colours clear so that the details do not merge with each other. Those who are completely blind must experience pictures through their finger-tips.

Many teachers and parents therefore have made by hand books for their children. They glue and paste in figures for the children to feel. As a rule they change ordinary picture books into tactile books. The problem is that blind children do not usually have the necessary experience to interpret these figurative pictures. If we who can see are given a tactile book with a small sized house cut out of veneer and glued onto the page, or the contour of a sheep glued with wool, we will recognize at once that this is a picture book about Ba Ba Black Sheep, or one about a house in the forest. Those who have never seen a sheep or a tree or a house or a flower simply do not know what a tree or a house or a flower is like. For example, blind children are unable to understand a landscape picture as they are used to receiving information through the tips of their fingers.

How can I make what I cannot see is the titles of a book by the Japanese Shiro Fukurai. His starting point is the conceptual world of blind children and their creative drive, He holds that the artist must learn and use the blind child's own symbols instead of trying to force his symbols on them.

Virginia Allen Jensen in Denmark and Philip Newth in Norway are both influenced by Shiro Fukurai, and they have used nonfiguratives as main persons in their tactile books. About her books What is that? Virginia Allen Jensen said in a lecture:

"It is nearly impossible for you and me to perceive a world void of visual experience. Even if we could, we would still be confronted with the question of whether - and if so, when and how - we should try to teach blind children what visual experience is, or whether we should only give them illustrations that require no visual experience. All experiments must and should be done in cooperation with sight handicapped children, their parents or teachers.
The main problem in creating a book that blind and sighted children can use together is to find a meeting ground for both, and this is difficult for adults who are conditioned to conventional thinking. The interaction between text and picture is of much greater importance in these books than in ordinary picture books. The text has to be worded very carefully so as to guide the sighted and blind reader to the same conception of the picture without coming into conflict with the reader's previous experience (or lack of it!). There should be nothing in the picture that makes the blind child feel cheated; that is, when a sighted and a blind child are reading the book together they should have an equal chance to see everything in the book - except for colour."

Some artists and publishers have taken up the challenge of trying to find, by means of imagination and reflection, abstracts which may be mass produced and with which a child is able to identify and which blind children are able to conceptualize without any visual experience. Circles and squares and triangles are the main "persons" in a book by Philip Newth, who cut the figures out of cardboard. A little rough oval shape became Virginia Allen Jensen's main person. The intention was to make books fit for mass production so that they could be sold in large numbers through the ordinary channels of book distribution. To children, blind or sighted, it means a lot to own books of their own, talking them along to bed at night, or lending them to other. And to parents and relatives it means a great deal to be able to walk into a book shop and buy a book for a blind child.

It is, however, difficult to make such books as Philip Newth has said:

"The visual culture is dominant; language, which is also the communication from of the blind, is packed with visual concepts. If they do not accept the fact that the sun is golden, the grass is green, their language would be very poor indeed. Long before sighted children can read letters, they experience through pictures. They look at known and unknown things on a flat page, reductions of large three dimensional forms to small two dimensional forms. They learn depth, perspective - dimensions can be reduced with the aid of colour or shadow. They become acquainted with representations of ideas. Their development is activated and stimulated by pictures. Throughout their school years this development continues, where almost all teaching material is richly illustrated to support the written word. The blind are a minority among an overwhelming majority. Of course blind people must live in a "sighted society", but most the adjustments always have to occur on the sighted person's terms?
Blind children have to accept phrases such as: An elephant is as big as a house. What does a phrase like that mean to someone who only perceives dimensions as far as his fingers can reach. Which conflicts arise when one has to accept without first having experienced?"

It is important that blind children and sighted children have opportunities to experience something together. It is useful even to sighted children to train their tactile faculties. And when feeling their way through a tactile book, preferably with closed eyes, they get an idea, however slight, of how it is to be unable to see, having to experience things by means of their finger tips.

About making books for blind children (and also books in sign language for deaf children) Mette and Philip Newth write:

"Most of the handicapped receive in addition to their handicap a burden placed by society that has hardly considered their handicap. They have greater difficulty in orientating themselves in society, obtaining an identity and self confidence and becoming active, vigorous persons, than the majority does.
Adapted literature for the handicapped cannot solve all the major problems, but can aid in the removal of unnecessary obstacles and cast light on some of the problems. Adapted literature for children with reading difficulties can give important information to the ordinary reader. Adapting books for other than the ordinary reader does not imply that the author or illustrator loses his contents or message. It is the form that must be changed. Adaptation does not mean restriction for the author or illustrator, on the contrary, it offers immense, exciting challenges. What the author and illustrator can offer is their experience and knowledge of methods and means, their ideas and what they are trying to convey.
The handicapped can offer a completely different way of experiencing the world, completely new dimensions in language and form. Combined, this enriches literature, yet these resources have hardly been used, Even the first tiny steps taken by us in that direction, show quite clearly that the majority has so much of infinite value to learn from the minorities. It requires much more than good intentions and understanding from the author and illustrator. It requires readjustment, tenacity and patience. The author and illustrator must learn to be able to create".

Large print books

There are more partially sighted children than completely blind children. Methods and aids will differ greatly within these groups. While blind children have books in braille, tactile books and talking books, many of the children with low vision are able to read ordinary books, provided that the print is large enough and the layout suitable for the needs of children with impaired vision.

Not only do parents, teachers, librarians and publishers now realize the importance of books for handicapped children, other professions have also become interested. Eye specialists, for instance, want partially sighted children to have low vision training which is important for the development of vision. It has been proved that if these children receive numerous visual impressions from an early age and the necessary assistance, they will be able to utilize their residual vision fully. They will be able to see better even though the eye itself is unchanged. They should also be assisted towards receiving as many clear visual impressions as possible. They will then be able to remember and recognize objects once seen when they see them again.

Since 1960 special attention has been paid to children with low vision and it has been realized how important it is for them to read ordinary books. Previously, they were usually treated as if they were blind as far as education was concerned. "The large print revolution" became a catchword. Most of the large print books were made mainly for adults, as were most books ion braille. However, it goes without saying that reading practice during childhood is especially important.

Large print books as well as talking books should be useful to several groups of disabled persons. Those who are so seriously disabled that they cannot hold a book need books with large enough print to be read even at a distance. This concerns some of those who suffer from cerebral palsy and also those who are in an iron lung. It often happens that books made for a specific group of handicapped people can also be used by other groups. Therefore it is important that librarians and specially trained teachers keep themselves informed as to what is being published, and that the publishers are aware that the demand is usually larger than they ordinarily tend to expect. Had there been a sufficient number of books in larger print in the past, it would have been unnecessary for so many people to be handicapped in relation to books.

Books specially suited to the disabled reader, will nevertheless be only a small part of the total production of books for children. The greatest challenge to publishers is to put out more ordinary literature in a form also suitable for the disabled reader. Naturally it is difficult to establish specific criteria, the degree of vision and technical reading ability differing to such an extent from individual to individual, not to mention reading interests and susceptibility to impulses from art. Even so it is possible to give some general guidelines. For instance: when producing reading matter for the partially sighted one has to exercise much care in choosing print. It has to be suitable for enlargement by technical means and should be usable for optacon and closed circuit television (CCTV), for instance Helvetica 14 p. Some enlargement is also desirable to make it possible to increase the reading/working distance, thereby improving one's reading/working position. On the other hand, the enlargement should not be too extensive as it then becomes difficult to apprehend the image of the whole word.

We should be aware that it is both difficult and important for the partially sighted reader to be able to form a total picture. While those with normal sight usually form a complete view first and then notice the details, blind and partially sighted people as a rule concentrate on the details first, with their eyes or fingertips, and then try to imagine the whole picture. Highly detailed illustrations can be confusing to those who can only see the picture bit by bit, and to one who has difficulties in understanding a complicated image. Therefore it is important that artists and publishers obtain the necessary information on what makes a book usable for as many readers as possible. In a book for partially sighted readers it is advisable to eliminate all unnecessary details, in order to make central motives stand out clearly.

As for general layout, the criteria applying to reading matter for partially sighted people are much the same as those which will be mentioned in connection with books for the reading retarded.

Books with sign language

The situation of those who were blind or partially sighted from birth or early childhood is very different from that of those whose sight was damaged later in life when their speech was already developed. The difference is even greater between those who are born deaf or have greatly reduced hearing from infancy and those who have lost their hearing after they have learnt to talk. The worst handicap in being deaf is that one cannot imitate speech. The conceptual structure of those who are deaf from infancy is totally different from that of those who can hear. The cultural isolation in which the deaf often find themselves may lead to severe psychological complications. In recent years one has become increasingly aware of how important it is for young deaf children to learn sign language as early as possible. Deaf children who learn sign language as early as children with normal hearing learn to talk will find it easier to grasp the function of the spoken language and its symbols when they are older.

Parents, teachers and other people who have daily contact with deaf children can, of course, interpret books into sign language when they read to the children. It is an advantage however, if they have books with illustrations in sign language, although very few of these exist in the world. Such books are of great importance as they give deaf children the chance to enjoy being read to just like ordinary children. Most children and young people who discover sign language are fascinated by it. It is an expressive language with far more movement and bodily expression than our ordinary spoken language. Children's books in sign language contribute to the spreading of information about this language to other people than those who are deaf themselves.

Picture books for children with delayed speech and language

Disabled children are just as different from one another as other children are. Even so, some handicaps, such as lack of hearing, will give those who suffer from it a mutual background and experience, or lack of experience. The differences between the deaf child and the child who can hear originate as far back as the embryo stage. The deaf child cannot hear its mother's heartbeat in the same way as other unborn babies do. Observation of deaf babies shows that their baby talk is less varied and their crying more monotonous than that of babies who can hear.

We do not need much imagination to understand that the understanding of speech and the very idea of speech present a great problem to those who have difficulties in hearing. We who are blessed with normal hearing can scarcely imagine a world without sound or without training in the use of words. Throughout life, deaf people receive a smaller share of social and cultural activities than others do, even if they exert themselves much more than those who can hear. Partially deaf children need more time to understand concepts than other children who receive impressions through their ears all day long.

The situation for those with speech disorders due to brain damage is just as serious. They hear, but do not understand the meaning of what they hear, or they are not able to use speech as a means of expressing themselves. These are the children with developmental dysphasia. Their reaction to speech and books at an early age resembles that of the deaf. In serious cases of developmental dysphasia the children are at a disadvantage because they have greater difficulty in grasping the use of symbols in language, resulting often in serious emotional disturbances. One can well imagine that it is more difficult to listen to something one does not understand than not to hear at all.

Autistic children are often without speech and, like deaf children and children with developmental dysphasia, they are frequently wrongly diagnosed as mentally retarded. Some of them may also have this handicap, but that is not the general rule. In addition, autistic children have perceptual disorders. They do not play or behave in the usual manner. Many of them can be taught to talk, but even then they do not always seem to understand the function of speech as a means of communication. Their speech is not normal; they omit small words and repeat what is already said. It seems as if they withdraw into their own world, stare at their fingers and bang their heads against the wall. Manu of them have difficulty in using personal pronouns. It is a great achievement when they can say I, but from I to me, and from we to us can be an uphill journey.

Concerning autistic children, many specialists regard language disorders as the central problem, and speech training is of primary importance.
Sometimes these children learn to read even if they cannot talk, as, for example, a boy who began to talk when he was eight years old, but who could already read. Dibs, the boy in Virginia M. Axlines book Dibs - in search of self gives us a feeling of what words and books can mean to one who has withdrawn into himself and perceived and learnt in silence. His enjoyment of words, and of books, should be a cautious inspiration to us:

"Books!" Dibs said. "Books and books and books." He lightly ran his fingers over the books. "I love books", he said. And isn't it funny that little black marks on paper can by so good? Pieces of paper and little tiny black marks and you've got a story."

Dibs loved colours. Thai tells us something of the need for colourful picture books. Dibs made a song about the blue colour in his paintbox:

"Oh, paint! Oh, paint so blue!
What, oh what, is it you can do?
You can paint a sky.
You can paint a river.
You can paint a flower.
You can paint a bird.
All things are blue.
If you make them blue.
Oh, blue paint, oh, paint so blue!
It'll spill. It'll slop.
It'll run. It'll drop.
My lovely, blue paint, it will.
It's a moving color.
It moves and moves.
Oh blue! Oh blue! Oh blue!"

When we find that some children learn to read before they can talk, and that as teenagers they sing rhymes, lullabyes and songs which were sung to them when they were small and we had no idea that they had learnt them, and when we discover their pleasure in colours, rhythms and melodies - then we understand how much picture books and song books mean to our handicapped children, Most of us underestimate those who cannot talk.

We also underestimate our mentally retarded children, because their intelligence is not like ours. Even though their means of expressing themselves is limited and their speech is poor and their abilities in general are limited in proportion to the rest of the population, they have the same need for experience and development. Reading books and having other experiences of art can satisfy some of these needs. Here too, there are great individual variations, from the weakest and most helpless to those who might be able to manage for themselves they grow up.

The largest group f mentally retarded are those who can manage very simple reading before they have become adults, provided they have had a chance to learn. There is no sharp division between them and children with what we call normal intelligence and an ordinary reading skill.

All children need books, even those who will never manage to read or understand the meaning of the written word. Picture books are necessary for all groups, and song books too, so that parents and teachers can sing for, and perhaps with, their mentally retarded children. And there is a need for simple stories in which they can recognize their own feelings and experiences.

As has been said previously it is easiest in early childhood, because we can use many of the good picture books, readily available. Many deaf, brain damaged or mentally retarded children have had much pleasure from the books about Thomas and Emmy by the Swedish Gunilla Wolde, the books by the German Ali Mitgush with pictures from towns, harbours and farms, and the American Eric Carle's colourful books. They are attractive and give recognition of objects from daily life, or give impulses to the imagination, or quite simply offer the child an esthetic experience.

Picture books which are not too childish can be used also while the child is growing older. But to find such picture books for children who have reached the age when most children have outgrown them is a difficult problem.

Even if he cannot talk, or speaks ever so poorly, a twelve-year-old is a twelve-year-old and of course should not have a baby book but a book which reflects his own age group. Although speech develops late, one still grows from a small child to a school child and to a young person who has needs for suitable books at all stages of childhood and youth. We should not give books with pictures of dressed up teddies and elephants to a 12-15-year old, but instead find books reflecting the interests of his or her age group. We often find that the most fascinating picture books are those with pictures from daily life. Even those who cannot talk, or speak very badly and cannot read, have their favorite subjects, their special interests just as other young people have: aeroplanes, space ships, trains, ships, cars, food, houses, forests, mountains, streets - the choice is endless.

Among disabled children there is just as wide a range of interests and the intensity of these interests is as great as among other children, provided they are given the opportunity to develop them. They also enjoy searching for their topics of interests in picture books.

Colours give pleasure to many and art books can be a rich source of esthetic inspiration. As the sense of rhythm is often well developed, one can read simple poetry aloud, thereby giving them a rare emotional and esthetic experience. Our language retarded children, just as other children, need to experience books alone, look at pictures, turn the pages and read at their own pace. And they also need to be read to in small groups. As they grow older the need for easily read books increases. The books should have pictures of the subjects and activities which interest older children and young people. And we need pictures of people who are happy, unhappy, cross or distressed, preferably young people with whom the readers can identify. A varied supply of interesting picture books for our language retarded children and young people would encourage them to learn to read.

In recent years publishers have cooperated in printing a number of non-fiction books which could be suitable for our language retarded children. But if the local milieu disappears in these books, if the characters live in a sort of no man's land so that these books may be sold in all countries, they are not really satisfactory for anyone, and especially not to mentally handicapped picture readers who need to recognize a genuine milieu.

Easy reading books

Dorothy Butler writes in Cushla and her books:

"Cushla was not "taught" to read, unless the provision of language and story, in books and out of books, can be called a method.
I believe it can, and that is the best method of all. It produces children who experience reading as a joyous process, natural to the human state: children who absorb ideas as sponges absorb water. That this eager ingestion helps such children to find meaning in the complex and contradictory experiences that constitute life is self-evident."

It is evident that a varied choice of children's books from infancy will secure a good relationship with books for the rest of life and will also increase vocabulary and stimulate the imagination. We know that children who have grown up with picture books, rhymes and reading aloud have a better starting position when they go to school. It is specially important to children who later on in life turn out to be reading retarded. If it is difficult to learn to talk, it will be even more difficult to learn to read.

In addition to those who are language retarded, we have those who are "only" reading retarded. This is the most common of all handicaps. Between 10 and 20% of all pupils in economically developed countries leave school without adequate reading skill for everyday life. It is fundamental for their education as a whole that they learn to read, as reading is the key to most information. Those who cannot manage to read, or who read poorly, have increasing problems as the printed word plays an ever greater role in all parts of the world.

A characteristic of most psychological and pedagogical books and periodicals is that the authors, to a large extent, have devoted themselves to retarded language development, learning difficulties and reading disabilities, and somehow have forgotten or do not realize that lullabyes and picture books stimulate language at pre-school age, and that children of school and youth age who work very hard to learn to read need fascinating books to make reading worthwhile. It is only recently that authors and publishers have become interested in the problems of disabled children and realize that those who struggle most when learning to read should have the most attractive books.

It is evident that an easily read, amusing and engaging book encourages interest in reading, whereas dull and boring books have the reverse effect. Good books give what we call positive motivation. While children usually need a year to learn to read, intelligent reading retarded children need several years, perhaps their entire time in elementary school, before they learn to read at the average normal speed. And that is in the best of circumstances, when they have good instruction and good reading material, including a wide choice of easily read books. We learn to read only by reading. We learn to choose only when the selection is sufficiently large and good enough.

What makes a book easy-reading? We must be critical as to the appearance of the book, its typography and layout. The lines should be short, preferably not more than 10cms. The letters should be comparatively large, but not so large that each letter stands in isolation. Grotesque type should be avoided. There should be ample distance between the words, but not so large that each word stands out alone. Likewise, the distance between the lines should be generous, but not to so great that the coherence between the lines on the page is lost. The paper ought to contrast well with the black type; off-white or slightly yellowish paper works well, while absolutely white or glossy paper dazzles and is unpleasant to look at. It is important that the paper not be too thin or looze in structure. The book should not be so big as to feel overwhelming. The text should be divided into fairly short chapters, and the chapters into paragraphs, enabling the reader to take many pauses.

These requirements pertain both to dyslectic pupils and to those who have difficulties in learning to read as a result of other handicaps: those who are brain damaged, deaf, mentally retarded or partially sighted. If the book appears to be easily read it will encourage the pupil to make the effort to read and it makes actual reading easer. For young people it is quite important that the books they are given do not look childish. They will then be encouraged to take the trouble to read somewhat smaller print, while small children prefer large print.

We must make demands on the placing and content of the illustrations. In many cases the book itself is a barrier. But an attractive cover helps and the illustrations should motivate reading. They should be placed as near to the corresponding part of the text as possible, supplementing the text and describing situations which would otherwise require a great many words. It is, of course, of great importance that the illustrations in no way clash with the text.

Of course these demands on the illustrations very a great deal according to the needs of the reader- whether the reader is primarily reading retarded or mentally retarded. To the mentally retarded reader it will usually be important that the objects shown are in proportion, a small house must be small and a big elephant must be big if they are shown in the same picture. And they must keep the same size throughout the book. Drawings which are not true to nature may confuse. For the partially sighted it is more important that the contours are clear, and that there are not too many details.

We must make demands on the language in the book. It should be simple language, preferably short sentences so constructed that they are suitable for short lines. The words should not be too long and new words should be repeated in different contexts; no foreign or very unusual words should be used. The demands on language very a great deal, however, depending upon what group of children we are thinking of, mentally retarded or reading retarded with normal intelligence. Partially sighted children do not need a specially easy language. To them the physical appearance of the book, cover, typography and layout, is most important. As a rule reading retarded children also tolerate more difficult words and abstracts ideas, provided they know the words beforehand. Deaf children have difficulties in understanding picture language and metaphors, and words having to do with sound impressions. But it also appears that if the printed text - the story - is exciting enough, these children are able to manage quite difficult words.

We must set a standard for the content of the book. Those children and young people who need easy reading material also have as great a need for a wide range of subjects as other children and young people. Some children like a lot of action, others prefer stories with the emphasis primarily on human relationships. But one thing is common: the story must not go on too long before the action starts. Lengthy descriptions which seem to get nowhere should be avoided. And dialogue makes a book more easily read. The most important thing is that the content interest and engage the reader. One can then go in for more difficult reading, and the content should suit the age group. The text has to be simple for those who are mentally retarded, but this does not of course pertain to those who are merely reading retarded and partially sighted. As a general rule we can say that the more difficult the subject matter, the simpler the language should be. Perhaps this is the reason why those few writers who have tried to write especially for reading retarded children have found it enriching to their literary work in general. They have compared it to writing poetry: one has to find the only suitable word - that one word that suits the style, the rhythm and the subject matter.

One needs an abundant choice of books for reading retarded children and young people, varied subject matter and degree of difficulty. Parallel to making books for those who are reading retarded, we must endeavor to make ordinary children's books more attractive. Publishers must be aware that these books are presented to children who have learnt to read only with very great difficulty. The real challenge is to make a larger number of ordinary children's books more attractive and more easy to read.

Perhaps it would be useful for those of us who work daily with books and have difficulty in believing that books can be a barrier, to try to imagine what it would be like if all books were published only in a language which we could hardly understand. We would then choose a book which was not too big and with easily read type, not too many difficult and new words on each page, and with illustrations. It would have a comfortable distance between lines, paragraphs and chapters, and the illustrations would enrich the story and inspire further reading. Above all, it would be a good book which holds attention.