Infants with visual impairment often require additional interaction from adults to reinforce behaviors that lead to competency at mealtimes, but parental and professional confidence in teaching these skills is often limited. In the following collective case study, the authors, a speech/language pathologist (S/LP), occupational therapist (OT), and…

In three experiments, sighted college students tried to learn the names of the first 10 symbols of the braille alphabet. In Experiments 1 and 2, visual examination of the symbols enhanced learning. In Experiment 3, similar results were obtained when standard size braille symbols were used during the study trials. (Author)

Noting that blind children perceive through their four senses other than vision, the author advocates their learning by tactual perception. (CB)

Two experiments were conducted with 80 college students to examine factors associated with the crossmodal facilitation of learning Braille symbols when the visual modality is utilized. In Experiment 1 subjects using the haptic mode were informed of both the structure of the braille cell and the range of dot numerosity of the symbols to be…

Seventy-two sighted college students who studied the braille or Fishburne alphabet for eight minutes were tested for recall. More Fishburne than braille items were recalled, independent of item arrangement. Results suggest that visually impaired persons might use the Fishburne system for labelling personal objects or when braille learning is too…

The study examined modality effects in the learning of Braille through providing a variety of either study or test trials in either the visual or haptic modalities. Subjects were 144 right handed college students. Results supported previous experiments demonstrating the visual modality superior to the combined visual-haptic or the haptic modality…

Two experiments, each involving 96 sighted undergraduates, investigated the effects on braille learning of presenting information about the number of dots a symbol contains at the beginning of the study interval (prompting condition). In study 1, prompting was compared with presenting no information during the study interval. In experiment 2,…

Two studies examined the effects of handedness on braille learning. Experiment 1 featured 64 sighted undergraduates at North Carolina State University, all of whom were right-handed and had no experience with braille. Results revealed that females outperformed males, but that, contrary to expectation, no significant effects of handedness were…

The limitation of stimuli which occurs in visually impaired children can be partially ameliorated by strengthening other sense modalities. (JH)