Blind and Sighted Children with Their Mothers: The Development of Discourse Skills

This study examined the effects of blindness on the conversational patterns of families and on the development of discourse skills, assessing children's ability to respond contingently to questions and directives. The conversations of four mothers and their blind and sighted children, aged 27–36 months, were analyzed during three play sessions in their homes. During the seven-month study, conversational parameters that included the length of speakers’ turns, balance between partners’ contributions, and mothers’ use of questions and directives were investigated. Conversational analyses revealed that the average lengths of speaking turns of the sighted children and their mothers were comparable, but those of the blind children were considerably shorter than their mothers’ turns.