TEACHING VISUALLY-IMPAIRED CHILDREN TO MAKE DISTANCE JUDGMENTS FROM ATACTILE MAP

This article reports on two experiments that investigated 59 children' s ability to estimate distances from a map. In Experiment 1, totally b lind children, children with residual vision, and sighted children wer e given a map showing the position of three objects on a path, two of which were present on the actual path. The children were asked to use the map to work out the position of the third object. The visually imp aired children performed less well than did the sighted children, and an analysis of the children's strategies indicated that the majority o f visually impaired children did not know an effective way to work out distances from the map. In Experiment 2, the visually impaired childr en were given a brief training in how to calculate distances from a ma p and then they were retested. After training, the children's performa nce improved.