Moral and cognitive reasoning features in cogenitally blind children: Comparisons with the sighted

Abstract

Moral and cognitive reasoning (within the Piagetian theory) aspects of congenitally blind children ranging in age from 6 to 12 years were examined and compared with those of a sighted sample, matched in age and socio‐economic background. The results of the study show that moral and cognitive development in the congenitally blind proceeds at a slower rate, but the developmental lag in the moral domain does not apply to all moral reasoning features examined. The dimension of retributive vs. distributive justice, for example, seems to develop in the same manner in the two samples. Regarding the prerequisite relationships between cognitive and moral development, the reciprocal interaction prediction was the more powerful for the sighted children, whereas for their blind counterparts, cognitive capacity seemed to exert greater influence on moral development. Possible explanations of the findings are discussed.

Emotion recognition/understanding ability in hearing or vision‐impaired children: do sounds, sights, or words make the difference?

“…What is less clear is how any differences in the verbal abilities of adolescents with HI or VI will affect their performance on emotion recognition and understanding tasks. Although children with VI, like children with HI, are substantially delayed in acquiring expressive language (McConachie & Moore, 1994), language‐mediated abilities (Dimcovic & Tobin, 1995), and other cognitive abilities (Bigelow, 1990, 1992; Markoulis, 1988), these initial delays are not reflected in the performance of adults with VI who do not differ from sighted peers on relevant tasks (Juurmaa, 1964, 1968). The implication of this pattern of results is that persons with VI experience a ‘developmental spurt’ between early childhood and adulthood.…”

Congenital visual impairment and ‘theory of mind’

“…The second pointer to the potential value of studying mental state concepts in congenitally blind children is that there have been both clinical reports and experimental evidence suggesting that some visually impaired children have specific delays in psychological perspective taking (Andersen, Dunlea & Kekelis, 1984;Fraiberg, 1977;Mulford, 1983). Preliminary evidence has been reported in relation to the children's spatial perspective taking (Gelber, 1980;but see Schwartz, 1983, for conflicting evidence for the partially sighted), understanding the concept of what another might see (Bigelow, 1988(Bigelow, , 1991but also Landau & Gleitman, 1985, for a contrasting view), evaluating moral transgressions in what another person intends (Markoulis, 1988), and judging what another person might feel from emotionally expressive vocalizations (Blau, 1964;Minter, Hobson & Pring, 1992). The question arises, whether such delays or impairments have an intrinsic relation to other abnormalities that appear to be characteristic of visually impaired children, in particular those in the domains of symbolic play, role play, and aspects of language comprehension and use (Andersen et al, 1984;Fraiberg & Adelson, 1977;Rogers & Puchalski, 1984).…”

Does blindness influence trust? A comparative study on social trust among blind and sighted adults

“…For example, although blind infants were able to participate in proto-conversations with their mothers, they had difficulty sharing their opinions about external objects (outside the child-mother dyad) (Preisler, 1991). Blind school-aged children experience rejection and isolation from their peer group more often than do sighted children (Jones, Lavine, & Shell, 1972) and appear to develop various psychological processes more slowly (Markoulis, 1988). Taken together, blindness may increase vulnerability in social interactions and the risk of being defected against, whereas experiences of rejection and isolation may elicit greater distrust towards others.…”