Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is LEGO Braille Bricks?
LEGO Braille Bricks is a play-based conceptual tool to teach braille to blind and visually impaired children. The toolkit comprises of LEGO bricks that have been adjusted to correspond to the braille alphabet. Each LEGO brick also features a printed letter or character to ensure the tool is inclusive allowing sighted teachers, students and family members to interact on equal terms with the blind or visually impaired child.
The LEGO Braille Bricks toolkit is accompanied by a pedagogical concept that builds on a learning through play approach and also includes inspiration for socially interactive activities with the bricks.
Q: Who is LEGO® Braille Bricks for?
LEGO Braille Bricks are to help blind and visually impaired children to learn braille and benefit from this playful learning tool. Although the toolkit is intended as a playful introduction to braille for younger children 4+, it has also proven to have learning opportunities and benefits for children in secondary school. Because the bricks also feature letters, numbers and symbols they can be used simultaneously with sighted peers and classmates.
Q: Have you worked with registered blind associations in the development of the product?
Yes, working with experts within the field has been an instrumental part of developing and testing the LEGO Braille Brick concept. The initial test partners have included the “Danish Association of the Blind”, Brazilian based “Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind”, UK based organisations “Royal National Institute of Blind People” and “Leonard Cheshire” as well as Norwegian “Blindeforbundet Norge”. A second round of testing in 2019 was conducted in partnership with organisations in Germany, France, Mexico and United States of America.
Q: How many languages are available?
LEGO Braille Bricks are available in 18 languages : Nordic (DK, NO, SE, FI), English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Czech, Icelandic. However, this does not mean that LEGO Braille Bricks will be available in all countries where these languages are spoken from the onset as this will depend on a roll-out strategy and availability of local partners.
Q: Does this mean that different languages/bricks have to be produced for different markets?
For some languages the braille letters are the same; A-Z are the same in all Latin-based languages. Only special characters and symbols differ across some European languages. But for other more complex written and phonetic languages, there are many more differences.
Q: What’s the price of a toolkit?
LEGO Braille Bricks and training are completely free of charge to select schools and institutions supplying resources for the blind and visually impaired. The LEGO Foundation is a philanthropic organization working with learning through play approaches to empower all children to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners.