CAN VISUALLY-IMPAIRED CHILDREN USE TACTILE MAPS TO ESTIMATE DIRECTIONS

This article reports on three experiments in which totally blind child ren and children with residual vision were asked to estimate direction s between landmarks in a large-scale layout of objects. The children e xperienced the layout either directly, by walking around it, or indire ctly by examining a tactile map. The authors found that the use of tac tile maps considerably facilitated the performance of the totally blin d children. The theoretical and practical implications of these findin gs are discussed.