Visual perspective taking is not automatic in a simplified Dot task

In the Dot task, children and adults involuntarily compute an avatar’s visual perspective, which has been interpreted as automatic Theory of Mind. We conducted three experiments in India, testing newly sighted children (N=5; all girls), neurotypical children (ages 5-10; N=90; 38 girls) and adults (N=30; 18 women) in a highly simplified version of the Dot task. No evidence of automatic perspective-taking was observed, although all groups revealed perspective-taking costs. A newly sighted child and the youngest children in our sample also showed an egocentric bias, which disappeared by age 10. Responding to recent work on what Theory of Mind tasks actually measure, we conclude that the standard Dot task relies so heavily on Executive Control that the alleged evidence of automatic Theory of Mind might simply reveal perspective switching costs.

Integration of Disabled People in mainstream Sports: Case Study of a Partially Sighted Child

Efforts to integrate and exclude disabled people in mainstream settings raise questions about the appropriateness of integration. This paper explores problematic aspects of the integration of disabled and able-bodied people in the mainstream, and structural conditions affecting the quality of such integration. In particular, it uses a case study of a partially sighted boy’s experiences in different mainstream sport settings to show how integration efforts can be complicated by the ambiguity of an invisible impairment, by the pressures on disabled persons and their families to ignore or deny impairment and disability, and by a mismatching of structural aspects of sports and the abilities of participants with disabilities.

Counseling Families of Severely Visually Handicapped Children

Professional counseling can benefit both the severely visually handicapped child and his family. Initially, counseling may be useful to family members as they deal with their immediate reactions to the diagnosis and begin to develop realistic expectations for their handicapped child. When involved, the professional person may continue to provide an essential service. As the severely visually handicapped child faces each developmental task, the route he takes to achievement differs greatly from that used by the sighted child; hence, the uniqueness of the needs of the severely visually handicapped child. This uniqueness, how to deal with it, and what problems arise when it goes unrecognized, are all potential areas in which the professional person may be involved. In addition to these direct services, the professional person may serve as consultant to community agencies willing to work with these children. Unfortunately, persons prepared to meet the needs described are seldom available to the severely visually handicapped child and his family.

Adapting School Psychological Evaluation to the Blind Child

□ In summary, it is important for the school to have knowledge of individual traits and needs in youngsters if the best educational opportunity is to be offered to all. It is easier to measure the psychological components of the normal child than to measure them in the blind child. From one point of view, the schools are essentially verbal in nature and the verbal areas of intelligence are, therefore, of primary importance in school success. While it is possible to do a wider appraisal of the characteristics of normal children, the difficulties in gaining good insight into the verbal abilities of blind children are not insurmountable. It seems reasonable to accept the idea that it is what the blind child possesses that is important and that certain capacities available to normal children are simply not open to aid blind children in learning in school. We will do better, then, to work with those abilities we can discover than to lament those the organism will never have in normal amount. The Wechsler Pre-School and Primary Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children are so organized that they will yield useful information about the verbal areas of intelligence in the blind. These instruments, properly analyzed, can tell us much about the assets of blind youngsters for learning. There is relatively little that we presently know that can help us measure the neuro-motor component of the blind child. Personality appraisal in the blind child is not greatly different from measuring personality in the sighted child. Paper and pencil tests can be administered with only a little inconvenience. Observation of behavior is, in any case, a more reliable way of understanding the personality of all children, sighted or blind.