ERIC Number: EJ737743
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-May
Pages: 5
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0145-482X
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Early Blindness May Be Associated with Changes in Performance on Verbal Fluency Tasks
Wakefield, Claire E.; Homewood, Judi; Taylor, Alan J.
Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, v100 n5 p306-310 May 2006
Studies of how children who are blind acquire and use language have focused less on cognitive compensations and more on delays in development. Vision is important in the establishment of early communicative patterns, and sighted children regularly use contextual visual information, such as a speaker's gestures and eye gaze, to make sense of speech that is directed at them (Mills, 1988). Some researchers have argued that, in the absence of vision, children may be expected to have more difficulty understanding concepts and the relationships between them and in acquiring generalizations about language and the way it works (Andersen, Dunlea, & Kekelis, 1993). In contrast, it has been argued that linguistic experience may be more important for children who are blind than for sighted children and that children who are blind may pay more attention to language (Chomsky, 1990; Perez-Pereira & Castro, 1997). This report examines the question of whether apparent compensatory changes in verbal fluency are concomitant with early blindness. The goal of the study was to discover whether there are differences between children who are blind and children who are sighted in verbal fluency, particularly whether there are differences in clustering and switching in fluency tasks. The data reported in this paper were collected concurrently with a larger data set reported in Wakefield, Homewood, and Taylor (2004).
Descriptors: Vision, Nonverbal Communication, Blindness, Auditory Discrimination, Visual Perception, Language Fluency, Verbal Communication, Task Analysis, Generalization, Individual Differences
American Foundation for the Blind Press, P.O. Box 1020, Sewickley, PA 15143-1020. Tel: 800-232-3044 (Toll Free); Tel: 412-741-1398; Web site: http://www.afb.org/store.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Authoring Institution: N/A
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Author Affiliations: N/A