haptiBOOK International Online Meeting 2021

Background information

Picture books are very important for the development of children. They spark their imagination, stimulate their curiosity, help them develop their ability to understand words and to focus and they introduce them to new concepts and the world around them.

However, there are hardly any picture books worldwide that enable participation for blind and partially sighted children.

Tactile books help children with a visual impairment to explore the world with their sense of touch, promote their concept formation and prepare them for reading in a very playful way.

These books combine braille and large print texts with haptic pictures and this is what makes their production so laborious and costly and causes the supply to be so scarce around the world.

Nevertheless, there are some organizations in different countries that have been working for years on the production of tactile illustrated books and trying to make up for the lack of inclusive books.

The DBSV has been producing haptic books since 2013. These books contain tactile elements that are interactive and made of different materials. Most of the work is handmade, so each book is a unique piece.

Information about the DBSV books and activities on how to use tactile books to learn about the world can be found at: www.kinderbuch.dbsv.org (only some content is available in English).