The study comparing the appreciation of riddles by 12 visually handicapped and sighted children (7 to 8 years old) supported the hypothesis that visually handicapped children are able to recognize and resolve the incongruities of riddles at the same age as sighted children. (Author/CL)

The paper reviews problems and challenges in serving blind children in mental retardation facilities. Incidence figures for institutionalized blind multiply handicapped children are cited, and problems of assessing such residents are seen to include uneven development and lack of standardized evaluation measures. The impact of ward management and…

The study involving two visually impaired developmentally delayed infants, investigated the role of child/adult interaction in eliciting intentional (goal-directed) communicative behavior. It was hypothesized that child/adult interaction would increase the child's awareness of how his or her actions influence adult behavior and would lead the…

Responses of itinerant, resource room, and residential school teachers to a questionnaire regarding adaptive hand function of blind, visually-impaired, and visually/multiply-handicapped 2- to 19-year-olds (N=148) indicated that physiological integrity was not a sufficient condition for development of adaptive hand function, suggesting that manual…

To insure the development of normal speech, the multiply handicapped blind infant or child needs oral/vocal sensory stimulation associated with communication experiences. (DB)

Twenty children, aged 7-12, with severe visual impairments completed a series of visual tasks requiring interpretation, analysis, manipulation, and visual motor coordination. Findings are discussed in terms of total performance, individual task performance, performance of younger versus older children, and performance of good versus poor readers.…

The manual development of 148 blind, visually impaired, and visually impaired multi-handicapped students, aged 3-19, was studied. Results indicated a significant relationship between object manipulation and speech, and an inverse relationship between object manipulation and stereotypic hand mannerisms. Optimal development of manual functions and…

Social routines, which combined nursery rhymes with carefully planned action sequences, were used to help two young developmentally delayed, visually handicapped children acquire communicative responses. Midway through the 3-year project, one child responded to words for objects, people, and actions. (Author/SEW)