Perceptual perspective taking is regarded as a major milestone in sociocognitive development that sighted children have generally mastered by the age of 4-5 years. In children who are blind, however, most prior research reports a strong developmental delay of several years compared with sighted peers. After examining the current state of research, this article presents a single-case study of a congenitally blind 36-month-old girl. An analysis of her behavior in stills from a videotaped developmental testing sequence confirms that Level-1 perspective taking may be acquired at an earlier age than previous experimental research would suggest.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Beelmann, A. & Brambring, M. (1998) 'Implementation and effectiveness of a home-based early intervention program for blind infants and preschoolers' , Research in Developmental Disabilities19: 225-244 .
2.
Bigelow, A. (1988) 'Blind children's concepts of how people see' , Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness82: 65-68 .
3.
Bigelow, A. (1991a) 'The effects of distance and intervening obstacles on visual inference in blind and sighted children' , International Journal of Behavioral Development14: 273-283 .
4.
Bigelow, A. (1991b) 'Hiding in blind and sighted children' , Development and Psychopathology3: 301-310 .
5.
Brambring, M. (1999) Handbuch: Entwicklungsbeobachtung und -foerderung blinder Klein- und Vorschulkinder - Beobachtungsboegen und Entwicklungsdaten der Bielefelder Laengsschnittstudie[Manual: Developmental observation and intervention in blind infants and preschoolers: Home Observation Scales and developmental data from the Bielefeld Longitudinal Study]. Wuerzburg: Edition Bentheim .
6.
Brambring, M. & Troester, H. (1994) 'The assessment of cognitive development in blind infants and preschoolers' , Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness88: 9-18 .
7.
Brambring, M. , Dobslaw, G. , Klee, K. , Obermann, S. & Troester, H. (1987) Bielefelder Entwicklungstest fuer blinde Klein- und Vorschulkinder. 1. Revision[Bielefeld Developmental Test for Blind Infants and Preschoolers, 1st Revision]. University of Bielefeld, Germany : SFB 227, Teilprojekt A3.
8.
Brambring, M. , Beelmann, A. , Buitenhuis, S. , Hecker, W. , Kurp, C. , Licher-Eversmann, G. & Mueller, A. (1995) 'Fruehfoerderung blinder Kinder. Konzeption und Hauptergebnisse des Bielefelder Projektes' [Early intervention with blind children: Objective and main findings of the Bielefeld Project] , Kindheit und Entwicklung4: 149-156 .
9.
Farrenkopf, C. & Davidson, I. F. (1992) 'The development of perspective-taking abilities in young blind children' , RE: view24(1): 7-22 .
10.
Flavell, J. H. , Shipstead, S. G. & Croft, K. (1978) 'Young children's knowledge about visual perception: Hiding objects from others' , Child Development49: 1208-1211 .
11.
Landau, B. & Gleitman, L. R. (1985) Language and Experience: Evidence from the Blind Child. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
12.
Lempers, J. D. , Flavell, E. R. & Flavell, J. H. (1977) 'The development in very young children of tacit knowledge concerning visual perception' , Genetic Psychology Monographs95: 3-53 .
13.
Pérez-Pereira, M. & Conti-Ramsden, G. (1999) Language Development and Social Interaction in Blind Children. Hove: Psychology Press/Taylor and Francis .
14.
Silbereisen, R. K. (1995) 'Soziale Kognition: Entwicklung von sozialem Wissen und Verstehen' [Social cognition: Development of social knowledge and understanding], in R. Oerter & L. Montada (eds) Entwicklungspsychologie, pp. 823-837. Weinheim: Psychologie Verlags Union .
15.
Warren, D. H. (1994) Blindness and Children: An Individual Differences Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
