Tactile maps can have both immediate and long term benefits in helping visually impaired children to find their way through their environment and to acquire spatial abilities. In a series of studies (1991-92), reported in this article, the authors established that young visually impaired children can understand and use tactile maps. The children adopted a variety of strategies for acquiring information from a map, some of which were more effective than others. In the final study, it was established that training in a simple strategy can improve children's performance in a map task.
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