Language Development and Social Interaction in Blind Children (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Language development and social interaction in blind children by Miguel Pérez-Pereira, Gina Conti-Ramsden Erik Schleef Language development and social interaction in blind children. By Miguel Pérez-Pereira and Gina Conti-Ramsden. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press Ltd., 1999. Pp. 197. With this book, the authors have provided a comprehensive overview and enlightening analysis of blind children’s language development. The book does a great job of summarizing and discussing the existing and very often conflicting literature on this topic, and it offers an insightful approach to research on blind children’s language development. The book is clearly written, and its convincing examples and helpful structure will quickly arouse the reader’s interest. According to Pérez-Pereira and Conti-Ramsden, blind children’s language development is compensatory and not just a slower version of ‘normal’ development: ‘blind children’s language acquisition is not delayed, nor aberrant, but follows a different route, by exploiting other resources to a greater extent than sighted children’ (67). Thus, in their acquisition of language, blind children can eventually arrive at a similar end point as sighted children via different routes, such as a more efficient use of verbal memory and verbal play. It is the authors’ belief that blind children must be understood in and of themselves before comparing their development to non impaired children’s development. Therefore, P-P&C-R adopt a functional viewpoint and attempt to analyze the meaning of children’s behavior in context. Similar behavior does not always have the same meaning. As an example, becoming quiet and silent in interaction can serve very different functions among blind and sighted children. The book is divided into seven chapters. Ch. 1 discusses some preliminaries to the subject such as issues of methodology and subject matter. Chs. 2 and 3 deal with more general questions in developmental psychology and their repercussions for language development: motor and cognitive development, social interaction, and the development of a theory of mind. The authors demonstrate that there is a wide spectrum of outcomes for congenitally blind children in these areas of development and that there is a need for research that focuses on blind children’s alternative development. In Chs. 4 and 5, the authors turn to language development in blind children. These two chapters cover methodology and theory of previous research; phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic development; personal reference terms; pragmatic development; verbal routines; imitative speech; and language acquisition theories. Ch. 6 discusses parent-child conversational interaction and in their final chapter, the authors suggest how blind children’s development can be promoted. Here, too, ‘the key is to take blind children’s behaviors as meaningful and communicative’ (158) in order to reinforce cycles of interaction instead of breaking them by misunderstanding the meaning of blind children’s actions or assuming aberrant behavior. This is a useful book not just for clinicians, educators, and those interested in helping blind children; it also touches upon theoretical discussions of the process of language acquisition itself. This book lets us see the role the lack of visual information plays in language acquisition, such as the perception of lip movement on the perception of speech sounds. It makes available an excellent discussion of the literature on the diverse aspects of this subject and is based on a useful approach which, in spite of the existence of conflicting data, is presented convincingly by the authors. Erik Schleef University of Michigan Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America