The Intuition behind the Non-Identity Problem

This paper examines a well-known non-identity case of a mother who chooses to conceive a blind child instead of a sighted one. While some people accept the non-identity argument and claim that we should reject the intuition that the mother’s act is morally wrong, others hold onto that intuition and try to find a fault in the non-identity argument. This paper proposes a somewhat middle approach. It is argued that the conclusion of the non-identity argument is not necessarily in conflict with our intuitive response to this case.

A Labyrinth Game for Blind Children Using Problem Solving Learning Model

This research aims to design the concept of learning media for the blind student and apply it to labyrinth game using problem-solving learning model. To design this media, 21 blind child characteristics, learning model, lesson plan and story concept of the game have been considered. After developing the proposed learn-ing media, some experiments on blind students are conducted. Then, the results of the experiments are processed and analyzed based on qualitative method. They shows that scores, perspectives, and focus of users are good. It means that the proposed learning media provides a positive impact on the blind child. Moreover, guidance and direction to students are the important things that have to do when the media is applied.

The Blind Child During Early Childhood (0-3 Years) and the Educational Intervention

This article aims at approaching the role of education in accompanying the growth of blind children from early childhood. Blindness has several impacts on the juridical, medical, social and educational plans, which concur in defining the blind person, together with the individual features and cultural contexts in which the person lives. Here we will focus on the first years of life, to understand the most crucial factors in the development of the blind child from an educational perspective. The article puts forward a multidisciplinary educational method, where an equipe should take care of the blind child and elaborate objectives together with the family. Communication among adults observing the child in different life contexts is particularly important, allowing timely compensation interventions. An attitude of continuous observation and mediation with the family allows an authentic child-centered approach.

Scaffolding Embodied Access for Categorization in Interactions between a Blind Child and Her Mother

During language acquisition, sighted children have immediate and temporally stable access to the ‘gestalt’ of an object, including particular features that suggest its categorization as part of a class of objects. Blind children, however, must effectively and productively constitute the whole object from its constitutive parts in order to categorize them. While prior studies have suggested that varied experience and appropriate sensory access can contribute to this process, little attention has been given to how this is accomplished. The present study aims to address this issue by using conversation analysis to explore embodied understanding and categorization work between a 26-month-old congenitally blind child and her sighted mother as they play with various animal toys. Here we provide an analysis of a segment involving a particular toy (a cow plush), and ask two questions: (1) During play, how does Mother scaffold embodied routines for the identification of criterial information about a category, and (2) How is knowledge of varied exemplars, not directly accessible within the current activity, then made available to the child? Detailed examination of the linguistic and embodied practices employed by this mother–child dyad provides a concrete example of how non-visual modalities help scaffold the learning of categorization techniques, as well as illustrates the import that the examination of naturally occurring social interaction can have for theories of language and embodied cognition.