This article reports on a study of children's understanding of the int
entions of characters in a series of stories, found in previous resear
ch to be impaired in children with autism but here investigated in 16
children with visual impairment and 16 sighted children. The children
with visual impairment gave fewer correct justifications based on ment
al states than did the sighted children. A small subgroup, identified
on the basis of their cognitive style on a reading task and predominan
tly children with congenital visual impairment, showed the most diffic
ulty on this social cognition task.