A European healthcare agency has tied up with the LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in India to develop the world's first 3D printed Braille puzzle motivating visually-impaired children to learn Braille, and helping with their overall development.

Serviceplan Health & Life has partnered with the LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in India, where there are 22 million visually impaired people, a significant majority of whom end up unemployed, illiterate and with low socio-economic status, due to financial constraints preventing them access to education at a young age. 

The existing Braille learning educational tools are either too expensive to make them accessible, or not engaging enough to encourage interaction. To address this problem, Serviceplan Health & Life partnered with Dr Anthony Vipin Das and team at the LV Prasad Eye Institute in India (LVPEI) and Ravensburger, the world’s leading company for puzzles and educational toys, to develop Fittle, the world’s first 3D printed Braille puzzle.

The Fittle film will be shown in movie theatres in India, managed by the Prasads group, as a public service message to increase awareness of the educational aspect of the 3D Braille Puzzles, and an explanation of how to download the template for printing the puzzles, said a statement released on 12 March.

Dr Beula Christy, Head of the Institute for Vision Rehabilitation, LV Prasad Eye Institute commented, “Fittle opens a new avenue for children with visual impairment to explore the world around them to its closest possible reality. Besides being a motivator to learn Braille, this amusing recreational toy influences overall development through a constructive playtime.

The learning opportunities of Fittle are huge, beginning with fine motor activity to enhanced higher level cognitive functioning such as attention, focusing, problem solving, object permanence, concept learning and much more. With this collaborative initiative, LVPEI and Ravensburger look forward to provide the gift of knowledge and holistic development to special needs children the world over.”

Accessible and engaging, each puzzle is divided into parts equal to the amount of letters, which when combined form the word and object. A line at the bottom of the puzzle combined with different shaped connectors, enable visually impaired children to find the right combination and understand how to spell simple words such as Fish in Braille, whilst at the same time getting a sense of the shape of the object., the statement added.