Suchergebnisse

Language acquisition should ideally begin at the same age for blind children as it should for sighted children. Parents of blind infants should be educated to their child's behavior and use it to assimilate the child to their environment. The author outlines some steps to utilize behavior and environment to develop language skills in blind infants.

This study compared the development of communication skills in blind and sighted children. The specific skills investigated were the abilities to detect the communication-relevant characteristics of listeners and to construct messages adapted to those characteristics. The participants were 33 blind and 33 sighted children who ranged in age from 5 to 12 ½ and were matched for age, sex, and IQ. No significant differences were found between the two groups on development of these communication skills. However, the author discusses two important factors that should be investigated in future studies.