Workshop

Soroban and teaching Mathematics for people with visual impairments

Abstract

The teaching of mathematics based on lectures and theoretical classes, which revol-

ves around visual stimuli can be unfavorable to the understanding of the content by students

with visual impairment. Therefore, the concrete teaching materials, assume a role in effective

teaching-learning process for these students. The Soroban, or Japanese abacus, is a calculation

tool that encourages motor skills, develops the logical reasoning and memory and requires more

tactile than visual stimuli to be operated. Therefore, it can be an important tool, with educa-

tional purpose, in order to contribute to the teaching and learning of arithmetic, for example,

for students with visual impairment. But the use of Soroban in classroom for people with visual

impairment is not yet widespread in Brazilian schools. Although the Soroban has been adapted

for the blind people in Brazil in the last decade of 1940, this instrument has been used recently,

which demand new studies about its contribution in the classroom. In addition, most math tea-

chers don’t know how to use it and don’t even know that its use should be provided by the school

system. So, spread the knowhow of using Soroban becomes vital when the Brazilian education

network goes through modifications to become a truly inclusive system.