Analysis of creative and logical-spatial skills in blind children and adolescents

Abstract

This paper displays the Action-research project “Analysis and strengthening of divergent thinking in blind and visually impaired children and adolescents”, funded by the University of Catania. In light of the importance of divergent and logical-spatial skills for these subjects, in terms of life skills and good educational practices, this research project is aimed to achieve the following objectives a) to realize divergent and logical-spatial skills assessment tools and to verify the validity of these instruments; b) to explore the factors of divergent thinking in order to better understand the most deficient skills; c) to proceed with the strengthening of the more inadequate divergent abilities in the subjects. We had Stamperia Braille of Catania print the Williams’ Test of divergent thinking (TCD protocol A and B) and the Raven Matrices (standard SPM and colored CPM) in relief by thermoforming on PVC with relief height not lower than 0.9mm in order to allow the haptic understanding of stimuli by the blind. For visually impaired subjects the instruments are made using full color four-color laser printing on 80gr / mq paper. In this phase of the research, in agreement with the Italian Blind Union of Catania, we began to administer these tools to five blind subjects.