This study extended the research on a special text messaging system, which allows persons with multiple disabilities to (a) write and send messages to distant partners and (b) have messages from those partners read out to them. The study involved two women with multiple disabilities (including blindness or minimal residual vision). The system…

Five teenagers with severe intellectual impairments and no discernible communication skills were enrolled in training to teach a conditional request for assistance using a speech-generating device (SGD). All were either blind or severely visually impaired since birth. All learned to operate an adaptive switch to control sensory outcomes, next…

To examine gait patterns and gait quality, 7 twins with cerebral palsy were measured preoperatively and after surgical intervention. The aim was to study differences and/or similarities in gait between twins, the influence of personal characteristics and birth conditions, and to describe the development of gait over time after single event…

In this study, the relation between levels of anxiety, self-esteem and subjective psychological well-being is analyzed in a Spanish sample of 28 fathers and 33 mothers of blind children. The results reveal a positive correlation between subjective psychological well-being and self-esteem, and a negative correlation between anxiety and subjective…

The aim of the present study was to compare the types of exploratory procedures employed by children when exploring bidimensional tactile patterns and correlate the use of these procedures with the children's shape drawing performance. 18 early blind children, 20 children with low vision and 24 age-matched blindfolded sighted children aged…

The aim of this study was to detect the possible relationships between various spatial skills of individuals with blindness. Twenty-eight individuals with blindness participated in five experiments that examined the body knowledge, laterality, directionality, perspective-taking, spatial coding of the near space and spatial knowledge of the far…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the differences in psychological well-being, symptomatic psychological disorders and social participation, between blind Torball players and non-players. Thirty blind male participants were recruited, 17 Torball players (aged 36.27 plus or minus 3.46) and 13 non-players (aged 34.80 plus or minus 2.53), and…

In the present study, the aim was to examine the differences in performance between children and adolescents with visual impairment and sighted peers in the water-level task. Twenty-eight individuals with visual impairments, 14 individuals with blindness and 14 individuals with low vision, and 28 sighted individuals participated in the present…

This study was planned in order to determine physical activity levels of visually impaired children and adolescents and to investigate the effect of gender and level of vision on physical activity level in visually impaired children and adolescents. A total of 30 visually impaired children and adolescents (16 low vision and 14 blind) aged between…

Recent theoretical approaches to infant development have highlighted the importance of exploratory actions to motor, perceptual and cognitive development in infancy. However, the performance of infants exposed to risk factors when exploring objects has been frequently overlooked as a variable of interest. The aim of this study was to review…

The relations between reading, auditory, speech, phonological and tactile spatial processing are investigated in a Dutch speaking sample of blind braille readers as compared to sighted print readers. Performance is assessed in blind and sighted children and adults. Regarding phonological ability, braille readers perform equally well compared to…

The aim of this study is to examine the performance in coding and representing of near-space in relation to vision status (blindness vs. normal vision) and sensory modality (touch vs. vision). Forty-eight children and teenagers participated. Sixteen of the participants were totally blind or had only light perception, 16 were blindfolded sighted…

In the current study we investigated word, pseudoword and story reading in Dutch speaking braille and print readers. To examine developmental patterns, these reading skills were assessed in both children and adults. The results reveal that braille readers read less accurately and fast than print readers. While item length has no impact on word…

Locomotion of children and adults with a visual impairment (ages 1-44, n = 28) was compared to that of age-related individuals with normal vision (n = 60). Participants walked barefoot at preferred speed while their gait was recorded by a Vicon[R] system. Walking speed, heading angle, step frequency, stride length, step width, stance phase…

Similar to many sighted children who struggle with learning to read, a proportion of blind children have specific difficulties related to reading braille which cannot be easily explained. A lot of research has been conducted to investigate the perceptual and cognitive processes behind (impairments in) print reading. Very few studies, however, have…