The subject of blindness and education has included evolving approaches and public perceptions of how best to address the special needs of blind students. The practice of institutionalizing the blind in asylums has a history extending back over a thousand years, but it was not until the 18th century that authorities created schools for them where blind children, particularly those more privileged, were usually educated in such specialized settings. These institutions provided simple vocational and adaptive training, as well as grounding in academic subjects offered through alternative formats. Literature, for example, was being made available to blind students by way of embossed Roman letters.

The Ancient Egyptians were the first civilisation to display an interest in the causes and cures for disabilities and during some periods blind people are recorded as representing a substantial portion of the poets and musicians in society. In the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040–1640 BCE), blind harpists are depicted on tomb walls. They were not exclusively interested in the causes and cures for blindness but also the social care of the individual.

An early institution for the blind was the Hospital Royal des Quinze Vingts established by the French monarch for soldiers who had lost their sight. Applicants had to be both blind and poor and they received 24 sous a day for their food and clothing. Some of the residents produced craft work but they received no formal instruction.

Asylums for the Industrious Blind were established in Edinburgh and Bristol in 1765, but the first school anywhere, to expressly teach the blind was set up by Edward Rushton in Liverpool as the School for the Instruction of the Indigent Blind in 1791. It taught the blind children skills in manual crafts although there was no formal education as such. Other institutions set up at that time were: the School for the Indigent Blind in London and the Asylum and School for the Indigent Blind at Norwich^{[citation needed]}.

In France, the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles was established in 1784 by Valentin Haüy. Haüy's impulse to help the blind began when he witnessed the blind being mocked during a religious street festival. In May 1784, at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, he met a young beggar, François Lesueur; he was his first student. He developed a method of raised letters, to teach Lesueur to read, and compose sentences. He made rapid progress, and Haüy announced the success, in September 1784 in the Journal de Paris, then receiving encouragement from the French Academy of Sciences.

With the help of the Philanthropic Society Haüy founded the Institute for Blind Youth, the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, in February 1785. Building on the philanthropic spinning workshop for the blind, the institution of Blind Children was dedicated on 26 December 1786. Its purpose was to educate students and teach them manual work: spinning, and letterpress.

Louis Braille attended Haüy's school in 1819 and later taught there. He soon became determined to fashion a system of reading and writing that could bridge the critical gap in communication between the sighted and the blind. In his own words: "Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we [the blind] are not to go on being despised or patronized by condescending sighted people. We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals – and communication is the way this can be brought about."

In 1821, Braille learned of a communication system devised by Captain Charles Barbier of the French Army. Barbier's "night writing" was a code of dots and dashes impressed into thick paper. These impressions could be interpreted entirely by the fingers, letting soldiers share information on the battlefield without having light or needing to speak.