Visual Reading Performance Research Articles

‘Blind’ Children as Visual Readers

Abstract Hunstad, E., Seines, O. M. & Krekling, S. 1979. ‘Blind’ Children as Visual Readers. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 23, 91‐100. Tactile (Braille) and visual reading (Closed Circuit Television System) performance were compared for seven severely visually handicapped children, 10‐16 years of age. They were either extremely slow visual readers or visual illiterates, and had previously been formally trained only in braille reading for 1‐8 years. First the set of visual task parameters which were optimal for each subject was determined. At the same time training in single letter identification was given to counteract the heterogeneity with respect to previous visual experience with letters. The subjects were subsequently trained in visual word recognition for a period of nine days. Speed in tactile and visual sentence reading was measured before and after the visual training period. The results showed that all subjects increased their visual reading performance. Hence, visually crippled children can readily benefit from visual training and become visual readers. For some subjects visual reading speed surpassed that of braille.