Parallel and Divergent Patterns in Blind and Sighted Infants

Fraiberg, Selma

doi:10.1080/00797308.1968.11822959

Cited by 105 publications

(80 citation statements)

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“…The play of blind children has also been described as impoverished and 'primitive', more often directed at adults than other children (Burlingham 1961;Wills 1968;Tait 1972a,b;Schneekloth 1989;Troster & Brambring 1994;Ferguson & Buultjens 1995;Skellenger et al 1997). Not only do blind children rarely imitate others, except in the special case of vocalizations (Sandler & Wills 1965;Fraiberg 1977), but also they often appear muted in their affective expression (Burlingham 1961;Fraiberg 1968;Wills 1970Wills , 1981 or reciprocal positive feelings to others (e.g. Kekelis 1992).…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

The pathogenesis of autism: insights from congenital blindness

Hobson

Bishop

2003

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B

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There is substantial heterogeneity in the aetiology and clinical presentation of autism. So how do we account for homogeneity in the syndrome? The answer to this question will be critical for any attempt to trace the links between brain pathology and the psychological disabilities that characterize autism. One possibility is that the source of homogeneity in autism is not to be found 'in the child', but rather in dysfunction of the system constituted by child-in-relation-to-other. We have been exploring this hypothesis through the study of congenitally blind children, among whom features of autism, and the syndrome of autism itself, are strikingly common. To justify such an approach, one needs to establish that the clinical features in blind children have qualities that are indeed 'autistic-like'. We conducted systematic observations of the social interactions of two matched groups of congenitally blind children who do not have autism, rating their social engagement, emotional tone, play and language during three sessions of free play in the school playground. The qualities of social impairment in the more disabled children were similar to those in sighted children with autism. Additional evidence came from independent ratings of the children in a different play setting: on the childhood autism rating scale (CARS), the socially impaired children had 'autistic-like' abnormalities in both social and non-social domains. If we can determine the way in which congenital blindness predisposes to features of autism, we shall be in a better position to trace the developmental pathways that lead to the syndrome in sighted children.

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Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

The pathogenesis of autism: insights from congenital blindness

Hobson

Bishop

2003

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B

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“…Blind children attain comparable performance with the sighted by relying on self referent cues (Millar, 1981) and self referent cues have been found to be reliable (Stelmach & Larish, 1980). Fraiberg (1968) has shown that this is evident in early infancy when infants reach to their body mid-line for objects they have not seen. Thus the difference between the blind and sighted children may be in the strategies for attaining information and is not a function of visuo-motor control (Jeannrod, 1984(Jeannrod, , 1994.…”

Section: Role Of Vision In Tactile Tasksmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…When touch and sound cues are in conflict, children initially respond to touch cues. Fraiberg (1968; observed that blind children reached at the body mid-line such as the chest for sounding objects taken from their hands before they reached at mid-line for objects on sound cues alone. Fraiberg concluded that the mid-line is the first space to have subjective reality for blind infants.…”

Section: Role Of Vision In Tactile Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The role of vision is undoubtedly facilitating, but speculations as to whether it is a necessary modality in the attainment of these specific behaviours can only be examined by comparing congenitally blind children with sighted cohorts. Fraiberg (1968) in extensive work with eight blind infants found that these infants first reached for objects only at the age of ten months, whereas sighted infants on an average reach at the age of five months. Fraiberg (1968) observed that developmental delays in other behaviours of locomotion such as crawling suggested that reaching is the critical skill to locomotion.…”

Section: Role Of Vision In Tactile Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fraiberg (1968) in extensive work with eight blind infants found that these infants first reached for objects only at the age of ten months, whereas sighted infants on an average reach at the age of five months. Fraiberg (1968) observed that developmental delays in other behaviours of locomotion such as crawling suggested that reaching is the critical skill to locomotion. According to Fraiberg, reaching in blind infants is a two stage process where the initial reaches are to sounding objects pulled from the children's hands and this is followed by reaching to sounding objects held directly before them.…”

Section: Role Of Vision In Tactile Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Haptic Touch and Hand Ability

Ittyerah¹

2010

Advances in Haptics

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Several studies have compared visual perception, tactile (haptic) perception, and visualhaptic perception of stimuli. Often, performance in tasks involving unimodal visual perception exceeds performance in both unimodal haptic and cross-modal tasks. However unimodal haptic comparisons of natural three-dimensional shapes could be as good as visual-haptic and haptic-visual comparisons. Therefore vision and touch may have functionally overlapping, though not equivalent, representations of 3-D space. The present manuscript argues that vision and touch cannot be equated because the sensitivity and the processes involved in the attainment of information differ between the modalities. Further, vision is useful for haptics only so long as it provides relevant information. The hand is an important source of information in haptic touch. Evidence shows that though one may have a hand preference, the ability of the non preferred hand cannot be undermined as compared to that of the preferred hand. Research indicates that the hands do not differ in tactile ability, and the seemingly lower performance of the non preferred hand is a consequence of its spatial orientation during performance and not an absence of ability.

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Assessing interactional competencies: The early social-communication scales

Seibert

Hogan

Mundy

1982

Infant Ment. Health J.

250

160

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Interactional competencies that develop in the first two years of life provide a foundation for all further social and communicative developments. Their normal acquisition, especially in the handicapped, can not be taken for granted. If delays in social‐communicative development can be identified early in life and changes made in how the social environment interacts with the child, intervention may effectively facilitate social development. However, to accomplish this, both a model for describing and an instrument for assessing interactional competencies are needed. A recently developed set of scales, organized according to a cognitive‐developmental framework and drawing upon recent research literature, is described in terms of its organization and content. Results that support the cognitive model underlying the set of scales are reported. The paper concludes with a consideration of potential criticisms that may apply to such a theoretically based instrument.

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Parallel and Divergent Patterns in Blind and Sighted Infants

Cited by 105 publications

References 1 publication

The pathogenesis of autism: insights from congenital blindness

The pathogenesis of autism: insights from congenital blindness

Haptic Touch and Hand Ability

Assessing interactional competencies: The early social-communication scales

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