The study examined the ability of five deaf-blind subjects to receive fingerspelled materials through the tactual sense, and of six deaf subjects to receive fingerspelling through the visual sense. Results found highly accurate tactual reception at normal rates and suggested that rates for visual reception are limited by the rate of manual…

Among 294 children of three to eight years, tactual oddity learning increased gradually with age. The finding of bidirectional cross-modal transfer of oddity learning supported the suggestion that such transfer occurs when training and transfer oddity tasks share a common vehicle dimension. Results are considered consistent with the view that…

The developmental change from global toward dimensional classifications, usually observed in vision, was investigated in haptics with stimuli varying according to their size and roughness. Results indicated that, although more overall similarity classifications were observed in children than in adults, this kind of classification was never…

Examines, within a situated-cognition framework, the teaching and learning of a concept in biomechanics, the manual techniques and tactile discrimination skills that accompany it, and the diagnostic frame of mind that informs concept, technique, and skill. Draws on observations of a class of physical-therapy students. (Author/SLD)

The sensory status of four nonverbal adults with mental retardation and severe self-injury was examined using skin temperature measures prior to opiate antagonist treatment. For each participant, the body site targeted most frequently for self-injury was associated with altered skin temperature and reduced by naltrexone treatment. In all cases,…

This schools fourth-grade language arts curriculum includes two stories that deal with blindness. The stories prompted Carol Vincent to invite one of her students' parents, who participates in a guide dog program by raising puppies, to bring one of her dogs to school and explain the training of guiding-eye dogs, and the ways in which they can be…

Middle school students represent a wonderful target audience for introducing neurological concepts. The preteen years of the middle grades represent a time of incredible physical and mental development. Students in a seventh-grade classroom are experiencing dramatic physiological and psychological changes. Understanding the parts and functions of…

Recent studies have suggested that unusual visual processing in autism might stem from enhanced visual discrimination. Although there are also many anecdotal reports of auditory and tactile processing disturbances in autism these have received comparatively little attention. It is possible that the enhanced discrimination ability in vision in…

Cardiac response to stimulation of the left and right perioral region in infants was examined. Cardiac acceleration and ipsilateral head turning occurred more reliably to stimulation of the infant's right side than to stimulation of the left side. Results reflect a difference in sensitivity at the infant's two sides. (SDH)

Compared was the effectiveness of training in three different tactual map reading search patterns with 144 braille readers in grades 4-12. (LH)

Geoboards have been effectively used to teach geometric concepts to children in third and tenth grades at the Halifax School for the Blind. (LH)

Lowenfeld (1945) developed a series of six instruments which could be used to identify perceptual abilities. For this study, the visually oriented person was defined as the objective viewer of the environment, while the haptic person was defined as a person who uses the eyes only when forced to do so and relates to his environment subjectively. He…