Sight is quite often the first ability to be lost by children with Juvenile Batten Disease. Progression onto learning braille is a natural step in the journey to cope with this. The challenge this presents seems to be related to the age at which functional sight is lost.

By the time Annabelle lost her sight she had a very good reading capability. She picked up braille very quickly. To her credit she was very determined and worked hard to effectively learn a new language alongside her normal school learning.

Robbie has lost his functional sight at a much earlier age so he is learning braille in parallel to reading and spelling abilities. This appears to be a greater challenge but he is making great progress with the fantastic support of his school and VI resources.

See the videos below showing progression from Sept 2020 to March 2021