How Visually Impaired Babies Explore Their World
New research has been revealed on how with visual impairments around them, and it may bring some insight to parents who may not understand their infant’s capabilities. There are parents everywhere who are raising an infant or a child who has a physical or intellectual disability. While there are supports and resources out there for parents, it is not always easy. There are rough patches, and times when mom really feels like she needs someone to talk to because she just doesn’t understand what is going on. That is why studies are so important when it comes to conditions that may require .
According to and , there is now new research on how visually impaired babies perceive the world around them. Finding out your baby has some sort of visual impairment can be overwhelming for a mom, and what can battle that feeling, is information.
The new report states that babies who are visually impaired rely more on touch than hearing to respond to the world around them. It has been known for quite some time that when someone is missing one of their senses, their other senses will often become “stronger” to compensate.
It turns out that for infants with some level of blindness, the sense that gets heightened the . To come to this conclusion, teams of researchers looked at infants with a visual impairment and observed how they reacted to different stimulants. They found that babies with sight reacted the most to sounds, but infants with visual impairments responded more to tactile experiences. They found that when using both sound and touch together, the visually impaired babies had a harder time navigating, but they responded to touch alone with far more accuracy than sound alone.
Infants were given buzzers in their hands and they either vibrated or made a sound, and they watched what happened when the babies experienced the different stimuli. This research could help set up resources and therapies that can help visually impaired infants. That programs could be geared to a more tactile experience to help infants learn about the world around them. If therapy is focused on their strengths, it is likely to achieve better results in a faster period of time. For right now, parents can rely on this study to integrate touch into their child’s lives. Instead of listening to a dog barking, place your child’s hand on a stuffed dog to help them learn what a dog is, for example.
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