From Access to Agency: A Tactile Learning Ecology for Braille and Blindness Education

Abstract

Cohorts of K-12 learners have arrived at adulthood without the bidirectional braille literacy that anchors lifespan agency, and the McDonnall research programme documents the consequence in adult workforce outcomes. The field has had access to the relevant literatures for decades but has lacked integrated analytical vocabulary for evaluating whether ecological conditions are supporting braille literacy development or substituting for it. This article proposes the construct of a tactile learning ecology to provide that vocabulary. The construct describes the interacting conditions through which learners who are blind develop bidirectional braille literacy as the foundation for lifespan agency, organised around a foundation-and-layering developmental architecture: the tactile-coding foundation must develop bidirectionally through structured instruction and lock to fluency before complementary sensory modes can layer over it as supplements rather than substitutes. The construct generates a three-category evaluative apparatus distinguishing foundation-supporting, layered-supplementing, and foundation-undermining deployments. The apparatus is applied to contemporary tactile learning devices, to audio-based substitution as the central foundation-undermining pattern, and to AI-mediated accessibility as a current case. Implications follow for teacher preparation, technology design, and research.

Keywords: tactile learning ecology; bidirectional braille literacy; foundation-and-layering; foundation-undermining; braille literacy instruction; Perkins Brailler; tactile media; assistive technology; digital accessibility; AI-mediated accessibility; lifespan literacy outcomes; TVI preparation