This article reports on the performance of 16 visually impaired children, aged 4–12, on tasks designed to assess their understanding of false belief, a central aspect of social understanding. The study found that the development of understanding of another's false belief is delayed in children with severe visual impairments and that the degree of vision loss seems to be a key variable in that development.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersonD.W., DunleaA., and KekelisL.S. (1984). Blind children's language: Resolving some differences.Journal of Child Language, 11, 645–664.
2.
AstingtonJ.W., and GopnikA. (1991). Theoretical explanations of children's understanding of mind.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9, 7–31.
3.
AugustoC.R., and McGrawJ.M. (1990). Humanizing blindness through public education.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 84, 397–400.
4.
BatesE. (1979). Intentions, conventions and symbols. In BatesE., BenigniL., BrethertonI., CamaioniL., VolterraV. (Eds.), The emergence of symbols: Cognition and communication in infants (pp. 33–68). New York: Academic Press.
5.
BigelowA.E. (1988). Blind children's concepts of how people see.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 82, 65–68.
6.
BigelowA.E. (1992). Blind children's ability to predict what another sees.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 86, 181–184.
7.
BlauS. (1964). An ear for an eye: Sensory compensation and judgments of affect by the blind. In DavitzJ.R. (Ed.), The communication of emotional meaning (pp. 113–127). New York: McGraw-Hill.
8.
ButterworthG. (1991). The ontogeny and phylogeny of joint visual attention. In WhitenA. (Ed.), Natural theories of mind: Evolution, development and simulation of everyday mindreading (pp. 223–232) Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
9.
ButterworthG., and JarrettN. (1991). What minds have in common is space: Spatial mechanisms serving joint visual attention in infancy.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9, 55–72.
10.
CorkumV., and MooreC. (1995). Development of visual attention in infants. In MooreC., DunhamP. (Eds.), Joint attention: Its origins and role in development (pp. 61–84). Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
11.
CutsforthT.D. (1951). The blind in school and society.New York: American Foundation for the Blind.
12.
DunleaA. (1984). The relationship between concept formation and semantic roles: Some evidence from the blind. In FeagansL., GivneyC., GolinkoffR. (Eds.), The origins and growth of communication (pp. 224–243). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
13.
DunnJ. (1988). The beginnings of social understanding.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
14.
EberN.P., and OsbornR.R. (1994). Perception of facial cues by adults with low vision.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 88, 171–175.
15.
EllisH.D., YoungA.W., and MarkhamR. (1987). The ability of visually impaired children to read expression and reorganize faces.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 81, 485–486.
16.
ErinJ.N., DignanK., and BrownP.A. (1991). Are social skills teachable?Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 85, 58–61.
17.
FarrenkopfC., and DavidsonI.F.W. (1992). The development of perspective-taking abilities in young blind children.RE:view, 23, 7–22.
18.
FlavellJ.H., ShipsteadS.G., and CroftK. (1978). Young children's knowledge about visual perception: Hiding objects from others.Child Development, 49, 1208–1211.
19.
FraibergS. (1977). Insights from the blind.New York: Basic Books.
20.
GreenspanS. (1979). Social intelligence in the retarded. In EllisN. (Ed.), Handbook of mental deficiency: Psychological theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 483–531). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
21.
HobenM., and LindstromV. (1980). Evidence of isolation in the mainstream.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 74, 289–292.
22.
HobsonR.P. (1990). On developing knowledge about people, and the capacity to pretend: Response to Leslie.Psychological Review, 18, 911–923.
23.
HuebnerK.M. (1986). Social skills. In SchollG. (Ed.), Foundations of education for blind and visually handicapped youth: Theory and practice (pp. 341–342). New York: American Foundation for the Blind.
24.
KekelisL., and AndersonE. (1984). Family communication styles and language development.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 78, 54–65.
25.
LandauB., and GleitmanL. (1985). Language experience: Evidence from the blind child.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
26.
LempersJ.D., FlavellE.R., and FlavellJ.H. (1977). The development in very young children of tacit knowledge concerning visual perception.Genetic Psychology Monographs, 95, 3–53.
27.
MacCuspieP.A. (1990). The social acceptance and interactions of integrated visually impaired children. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Dalhousie UniversityHalifax, Nova Scotia.
28.
MacCuspieP.A. (1992). The social acceptance and interactions of visually impaired children in integrated settings. In SacksS., KekelisL., & Gaylord RossR.J. (Eds.), The development of social skills by blind and visually impaired students (pp. 83–102). New York: American Foundation for the Blind.
29.
MatsudaM.M. (1984). A comparative analysis of blind and sighted children's communication skills.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 78, 1–5.
30.
MinterM.E., HobsonR.P., and PringL. (1991). Recognition of vocally expressed emotion by congenitally blind children.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 85, 411–415.
31.
MulfordR. (1983). Referential development in blind children. In MillsA. (Ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child (pp. 89–107). San Diego, CA: College-Hill Press.
32.
PernerJ., LeekamS., and WimmerH. (1987). Three-year-old's difficulty with false belief: The case for a conceptual deficit.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 5, 125–137.
33.
PiagetJ. (1955). The language and thought of the child.New York: Meridian Press.
34.
SacksS., KekelisL., & Gaylord RossR.J. (Eds.) (1992). The development of social skills by blind and visually impaired students.New York: American Foundation for the Blind.
35.
ScaifeM., and BrunerJ. (1975). The capacity for joint visual attention in the infant.Nature, 253, 265–266.
UrwinC. (1983). Dialogue and cognitive functioning in the early language development of 3 blind children. In MillsA. (Ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child (pp. 142–161). San Diego, CA: College-Hill Press.
38.
Van HasseltV.B., HersenM., KazdinA.E., SimonJ., and MastantuonoA.K. (1983). Social skills training for blind adolescents.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 77, 199–203.
39.
Van HasseltV.B., HersenM., MooreL.E., and SimonJ. (1986). Assessment and treatment of families with visually handicapped children: A project description.Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 80, 633–635.
40.
Van HasseltV.B., KazdinA.E., HersenM., SimonJ., and MastantuonoA.K. (1985). A behavioral-analytic model for assessing social skills in blind adolescents.Behaviour Research and Therapy, 23, 395–405.
41.
Van HasseltV.B., SimonJ., and MastantuonoA.K. (1982). Social skills training for blind children: A program description.Education of the Visually Handicapped, 14, 34–40.
42.
WaldenT.A., and FieldT.M. (1990). Preschool children's social competence and production and discrimination of affective expressions.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 8, 65–76.
43.
WarrenD. (1977). Early childhood research: Implications for orientation and mobility. Address to the California Association of Orientation and Mobility Specialists, San Francisco.
44.
WarrenD. (1984). Blindness and early childhood development (2nd ed.). New York: American Foundation for the Blind.
45.
WimmerH., and PernerJ. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception.Cognition, 13, 103–128.
46.
YanivI., and ShatzM. (1988). Children's understanding of perceptibility. In AstingtonJ.W., HarrisP.L., OlsonD.R. (Eds.), Developing theories of mind (pp. 93–108). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.