Since the 1970’s, books for visually impaired children have been published on a small scale. During
the 90’s, “touchable picture books” were more widely recognized and grew in popularity. For a time,
early childhood reading materials were not readily available for visually impaired children. Most visually
impaired children had access to most reading materials, only after they were old enough to read in
Braille. “Touchable picture books” opened a whole new world of learning in regards to education for
the visually impaired. Now, the development of “Touchable picture books” has become a mainstream
subject for research around the world.
The research in this paper primarily covers a project in France, at the Dordogne,Sant-Front
elementary school (2006-2007). Inspired by the collection of touchable picture books published by “Les
doigts qui rêvent”(Fingers Which Dream).In this project, non-handicapped school children created
a touchable picture book for visually impaired children.This paper also looks at the possible ways
to enhance children’s abilities to understand one another and also in regards to interacting with
handicapped children.