Lego is to begin selling bricks coded with braille to help blind and partially sighted children learn to read the touch-based alphabet.
Lego hopes the initiative will help parents and siblings share in learning braille, and the packs will include ideas for a range of educational games that families can play together.
He said learning braille via Lego made the process less slow and dull, while using a toy “that everybody recognises means it doesn’t feel weird.
Lisa Taylor, mum to seven-year-old Olivia, said: “Olivia first discovered Lego braille bricks at school and they had such a big impact on her curiosity for braille.
We can play with braille together as a family and she can introduce braille to her little sister in a way they both love.
Lego braille bricks are accessible for her without being really different for other kids, so she gets to play and learn just like every other child,” Taylor said.
Rasmus Løgstrup, the Lego Group lead designer on braille bricks, said the company had been “inundated with thousands of requests to make [the bricks] more widely available”. »
