LEGO releases braille bricks for blind and visually impaired children

lego braille bricks now available for all

After the initial announcement of its Braille Bricks in 2019, LEGO has announced that the accessible kit will be available for purchase for the first time. The announcement has come after an overwhelming and positive response from around the world, just ahead of World Blind Awareness Month this October. Up until now, the LEGO Foundation had distributed the kits free of charge, as part of a pilot program, to organizations specializing in the education of children with vision impairment.

The bricks have been specially-designed to help blind and visually impaired children and adults learn braille. Each of the 287 LEGO Braille Bricks is moulded with studs to depict a different letter or number in the braille alphabet. These specialty bricks come in five colors — white, yellow, green, red and blue — and remain fully compatible with existing LEGO toy products.

images, video courtesy LEGO

accessible learning through play

The LEGO Braille Bricks set also includes two baseplates, while the packaging integrates braille embossing. To compliment the play experience and support pre-braille skill development, the group offers a series of supporting ‘play starters’ on LEGO.com which will guide players on orienting, attaching and stacking the bricks through games such as Rock, Paper, Scissors, in which both fully- and partially-sighted players can take part.

Rasmus Løgstrup, LEGO Group Lead Designer on LEGO Braille Bricks comments: ‘Play has the power to change lives; when children play, they learn vital life-long skills, so we were thrilled by the reception that LEGO Braille Bricks received in educational settings. We’ve been inundated with thousands of requests to make them more widely available, so we just knew we had to make it happen!‘

During the original pilot program, the LEGO Braille Bricks have been tested for languages including Danish, Norwegian, English and Portuguese, German, Spanish and French — including special characters. To start, the kit is available for sale at 89.99 USD on September 1st, 2023 with pre-order starting August 24th — Italian, German and Spanish versions will be included by early 2024.

The LEGO Group has also partnered with the free mobile app Be My Eyes. The popular app connects blind and partially sighted people with companies to help with everyday tasks through a live video call. As part of the partnership, LEGO Customer Service colleagues will provide confidential, live visual assistance through the app covering support from a wide range of topics from unboxing, to general product support.

Mike Buckley, Chairman and CEO of Be My Eyes, continues: ‘The fact that the LEGO Group is investing in inclusion is huge because so many people in the blind and low vision community already love and enjoy LEGO products. Be My Eyes is incredibly honored to partner with the LEGO Group to enable and inspire the creativity of blind and low vision builders across the globe.’