The development of reaching in blind children

Abstract

The development of object awareness was studied longitudinally in five blind infants by presenting them with tasks designed to investigate the sequential development of reaching and search. The tasks tapped the relative importance of sound and touch in eliciting a reach and the development of object permanence from Stage 3 to Stage 5. The children's pattern of mastery of the tasks suggests that it is touch rather than sound which initially cues the children to the existence and/or location of an object and that the sequential development of object permanence in blind children parallels that of sighted children.