We have some amazing news for parents of children who are visually impaired (or parents who are visually impaired themselves and love Lego)!

Lego plans to launch instructions to cater for fans who have visual impairments; these instructions will be available in braille and audio. Using AI technology, the pilot programme has been developed to help children with visual impairments to access Lego for the developmental benefits – this is such a great idea and another step in the right direction for inclusivity!

The programme has been inspired by Matthew Shifrin, who is blind himself. He’s an entrepreneur and an avid fan of Lego, and started to create building steps in Braille with a friend for his website before he started this fabulous collaboration with Lego. After receiving so many requests that they had to start turning some down, Matthew realised just how popular this idea is, and he got in touch with the Lego Foundation…

…Resulting in The Lego Audio & Braille Instructions Pilot Programme!

You can visit the website for FREE instructions here!

“LEGO Audio & Braille Building Instructions allow blind and visually impaired children who appreciate hands-on, minds-on activities to experience the joy of building and pride of creation through their hands.” Lego

Social media is awash with praise for the new programme…

One of our favourite tweets was shared by Hassel Inclusion, a fabulous resource advocating for removing barriers to the use of digital products and ensuring inclusivity online. We totally agree – it is a GREAT initative!

This is great! #Lego now has #audio and #braille instructions for people with visual impairments. https://t.co/lTe83QKKcN
And if you're interested in how it came about check out this video here. https://t.co/rEOQdaYF6g @ATBlog2 @LEGO_Group @LEGOfoundation #Inclusion #Acessibility pic.twitter.com/eY43aIYakN

— Hassell Inclusion (@HassellInc) September 24, 2019

This video by Beyond The Brick explores the new Lego pilot scheme.

‘It empowers me to do things I’ve never been able to do before.”

This pioneering ‘grassroots innovation’ is helping so many blind and visually impaired children to engage and learn; it’s incredibly useful for many academic subjects, particularly mathematics, and it opens up so many doors to a fun and engaging learning experience for visually impaired children!