The Relation Between Gesture and Speech in Congenitally Blind and Sighted Language-Learners

Gesture is widely regarded to play an important role in communication, both in conjunction with and independent of speech. Indeed, gesture is known to develop even before the onset of spoken words. However, little is known about the communicative conditions under which gesture emerges. The aim of this study was to explore the role of vision in early gesturing. We examined gesture development in 5 congenitally blind and 5 sighted toddlers videotaped longitudinally between the ages of 14 and 28 months in their homes while engaging in free play with a parent or experimenter. All of the blind children were found to produce at least some gestures during the one-word stage of language development. However, gesture production was relatively low among the blind children relative to their sighted peers. Moreover, although blind and sighted children produced the same overall set of gesture types, the distribution of gesture types across categories differed. In addition, blind children used gestures primarily to communicate about objects that were nearby, while sighted children used them for nearby as well as distally located objects. These findings suggest that gesture may play different roles in the language-learning process for sighted and blind children. Nevertheless, they also make it clear that gesture is a robust phenomenon of early communicative development, emerging even in the absence of experience with a visual model.     

Enacting Blind Spaces and Spatialities: A Sociological Study of Blindness Related to Space,Environment and Interaction

Lack of eyesight generates blind spaces. Blind spaces often enacted together with sighted are different from visual spaces in important ways. Sharing physical and social space with sighted may imply special challenges for blind persons with regard to interaction order and social identities. The article is based on ethnographic data with the purpose to describe enactment and management of physical and social spaces for blind born persons in different settings. It focuses on the physical and social plasticity of blind spaces and the mediated, practiced and often toolic relationship between body, self and physical and social environments.     

Coming of Age among Blind People in Israel

Based on ethnographic observations amongst adults blinded in childhood, this paper extends the study of stigma and handicap into the domestic setting. The respondents described their sighted parents' patronising practices towards them. Parents were reported to have attempted to channel their blind offspring into less-than-optional occupations and marriages. Social conditions were frequently such that blind youths were in a situation of status inconsistency—their educational achievements were superior to their occupational achievements. Current social conditions have also improved marital chances for blind women of Middle-Eastern background. All this leads to a chasm between the traditional outlook of sighted parents and the reality in which their blind offspring live. The latter relate ambivalently towards their parents, and sometimes distance themselves from them and their communities of origin.     

Assessment of Indoor Route-finding Technology for People with Visual Impairment

This study investigated navigation with route instructions generated by digital-map software and synthetic speech. Participants, either visually impaired or sighted wearing blind folds, successfully located rooms in an unfamiliar building. Users with visual impairment demonstrated better route-finding performance when the technology provided distance information in number of steps rather than walking time or number of feet.     

On social aspects of the usage of guide-dogs and long-canes1

The paper argues that discredit pertains not only to individuals, but also to the implements of aid that discredited persons use to overcome their situation. Focusing on the mobility aids of blind people, the paper demonstrates that as a consequence of the diffusion of discredit, the users of guide-dogs and long-canes mould their usage practices in particular ways. Namely, according to norms which the users conceive to be unobjectionable to sighted people. Thus cane-users considered the sound that their canes emitted to be embarassing, and tried to avoid causing it. Also guide-dog usage was inhibited as a result of traditional Middle-Eastern attitudes towards dogs. In concluding, the ambiguity of blind people toward their mobility aids is juxtaposed with their accepting attitude toward television sets in their homes. The latter are conceived by blind people as a natural element of the material culture of the sighted environment. Consequently, even blind people for whom television sets are manifestly unsuited introduce them into their lives. This leads to the conclusion that material artifacts are conceptualized in society generally, according to practices that are attuned to the dominant social stratum. The data are drawn from observations made in the course of ethnographic field-work in a population of blind people in Israel.     

Do 12‐Month‐Old Infants Trust a Competent Adult?

Why infants prefer to look at and use information provided by some informants over others was examined in four experiments. In each experiment, 52 12‐month‐old infants participated. In Experiment 1, a familiar expert and a familiar nonexpert and in Experiment 2, a novel expert and a novel nonexpert presented an ambiguous object and provided positive information. In both experiments, the infants preferred to look at the expert and regulated their behavior more in accordance with positive information provided by the expert, regardless of she was novel or more familiar. In Experiment 3, a familiar expert and a familiar nonexpert and in Experiment 4, a novel expert and a novel nonexpert presented an ambiguous object and provided negative information. In both experiments, the infants looked more at the expert and regulated their behavior more in accordance with negative information provided by the expert, regardless of she was novel or more familiar. The results support an expertise perspective of infant behavior in social‐referencing situations.     

Developing Expert Systems

Summary

This article provides an overview of the general procedure and steps involved in developing expert systems. The first consideration is to select a suitable problem. Actual development of the expert system begins with formulating and representing the knowledge base. Then a programming tool is selected for use in developing the expert system and a working prototype is developed. After a period of evaluation and reformulation the full expert system is completed. Finally, the performance of the expert system is formally evaluated, final modifications are made, and the expert system is put into everyday use. Additional resources are provided for further reference.     

Can a blind person play dodge ball? Enacting body and cognition with a group of youths with visual disabilities

This paper presents some results of research carried out with a group of blind and partially sighted youths who are enrolled in a school for people with visual disabilities in Brazil. This research aims to promote different articulations between the body and cognition. Based on actor–network theory, it considers that having a body means learning to be affected by widely differing actors. The field research was carried out through body expression activities, which seek to promote connections between the body and heterogeneous materials, such as a ball, a rattle or a colleague. The paper indicates that cognition is the effect of these collective body experiences. It also underlines that these body experiences have produced new ways of knowing amongst the blind and partially sighted youths. In the conclusion it is stressed that psychology research on disability must be done with (and not about) people with visual disability. ¹ 1. A previous version of this paper was presented as a part of the Symposium ‘Understanding the Psychological in Latin America’ that was held at the Subjectivity: International Conference, Cardiff University, UK, 27–29 June 2008. View all notes     

‘It’s better if someone can see me for who I am’: stories of (in)visibility for students with a visual impairment within South African Universities

Issues of visibility, invisibility and the non-disabled gaze are very relevant to the lives of many disabled persons. With this article we tentatively show that, despite the physical ‘over’-visibility of disabled bodies, many intricate parts of their personhood remain obscured and invisible. Interviews with 23 students with a visual impairment revealed that they sometimes experienced stares and averted gazes from their sighted counterparts. In response, they often hid their entire impairment, or parts thereof, in an effort to conform and gain acceptance and to earn membership to a non-disabled peer group. Acceptance was often found in companionship with fellow disabled peers. Since these stories told of continuing exclusion for disabled students on tertiary grounds, further participatory research is recommended.     

Fitting in and looking pretty: experiences of students with visual impairment participating in ‘inclusive’ ballroom dance classes

Abstract

Greater participation in social, sporting and cultural activities by disabled people is important for inclusion. We discuss the experiences of four students with visual impairment who are partnered with sighted dancers in an inclusive ballroom dancing project. Their talk is discussed against the background of common images about dance, disability and performance. Participants experienced inclusive ballroom dancing as enjoyable. They also indicated the ways in which the dancing involved acting to conceal their impairments and to reinforce norms of non-disabled heteronormativity. We discuss the contradictions inherent in projects which espouse inclusion and are appreciated but which perpetuate exclusionary stereotypes.     

Sight or insight? Child therapy with a blind clinician

The process of a blind second-year social work student's play therapy with sighted children is analyzed and discussed. The ensuing limitations, compensatory issues, and unexpected opportunities are highlighted. The student's experience in becoming blind, her adaptation to it, and discrimination experienced seeking employment are described. Major themes in describing the child therapy focus on compensation for visual cues, utilization of the guide dog as a pet therapist, proxemics and mirroring in relation to blindness, and the impact of the wounded healer on clients. The student's work with a 13 year old girl illustrates the major concepts.     

LEGISLATIVE TURNOVER,FISCAL POLICY,AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM U.S. STATE LEGISLATURES

Increased turnover among legislators can make them short‐sighted, affecting fiscal policy and economic growth. We exploit the exogenous variation in legislative turnover induced by term limit laws and by redistricting in the 50 U.S. states, finding that increased turnover increases capital spending by state governments, which may be designed to constrain future governments. The changes may cause long‐run distortions in the economy, reducing long‐term economic growth. (JEL H72, H73, H76)     

Some implications of the emergence and diffusion of medical expert systems

This paper has two sections. The first introduces the area of medical decision making and the use of artificial intelligence techniques for developing medical expert systems. It also briefly discusses how a physician and an expert system interact, using the INTERNIST-I system as an example. An elaboration of several technical problems which expert systems must overcome for them to be accepted and used by physicians ends this discussion. The second section considers the implications medical expert systems for physicians and patient care. It suggests that medical expert systems regulate and routinize physicians' work. Moreover, the encoding of expert knowledge in a computer program will likely demystify the practice of medicine, nullifying much of the art of medicine. Alternatively, medical expert systems may improve the physician's decision making, extend the practitioner's capabilities, and hence increase the physician's prestige. Moreover, computer aided decision making could speed diagnosis, especially for difficult cases, thus providing the doctor with time for other pursuits. However, medical expert systems will be a mixed blessing for patient care. On the one hand, they could provide expert advice in medically underserved areas, decrease the number of referrals patients and physicians must contend with, while offering expert advice to a greater number of patients. On the other hand, expert systems could further alienate patients from practitioners and from the health system in general. Even more than other medical technologies, computers in the doctor's office could increase the separation between the doctor and patient, while lowering the physician's confidence in her or his own decision making. The conclusion discusses the importance of control over work in determining the use of technology and the influence of the changing medical power structure on the use of expert systems.I thank J. Zvi Namenwirth for his careful review and thoughtful comments on this and previous drafts of this paper. I also appreciate the useful suggestions offered by anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft.     

Negative to the extreme: the problematics of the RNIB’s See the Need campaign

This article reports the findings of research about the RNIB’s recent advertising campaign. Under the methodological rubric of Critical Discourse Analysis, two paradigms were applied as research instruments: an advertising aesthetic was used in the primary analysis; and the tripartite model of disability was used in the secondary analysis. This analysis of various texts culminated in the conclusion that the RNIB’s campaign is fundamentally contradictory, in danger of contributing to problematic social attitudes and thus hindering the very people it sets out to help – an issue greatly complicated by the organisational involvement of people registered as blind and partially sighted.     

Visually Impaired Physiotherapists: their struggle for acceptance and survival

This paper traces the development of physiotherapy as a career for visually impaired people from the end of the 19th century until the present day; It is an aspect of the author's on-going PhD research into the employment situation of visually impaired physiotherapists. Visually impaired physiotherapy students were initially integrated with their sighted peers, but from 1915 their training was taken over by the Royal National Institute for the Blind within a segregated college. This arrangement lasted until 1992 when visually impaired students were accepted for training as physiotherapists at the University of East London. This paper traces the difficulties visually impaired people have experienced in their struggle for acceptance and survival within the physiotherapy profession, and the important influences, such as the First and Second World Wars and the development of the National Health Service, which has helped to shape their destiny.     

Between the state and global civil society: non‐official experts and their network in the Asia‐Pacific, 1925–45

This article stresses the need for a more rigorous scrutiny of the power structure in which an expert network produces its ‘expert knowledge’. It defines a pioneering multinational expert network in the Asia‐Pacific region in the interwar years as a prototype of an epistemic community, and examines how far it challenged the state‐centred and North Atlantic‐centred dominant structure of international politics, and became ‘global’. In this article I argue that this particular network largely reinforced the dominant structure. This meant that it remained inter‐national and colonial, and served the interests of the state/empire, neither becoming global nor advancing a universalist cause for the global civil society. The failure owes a lot to historical circumstances. Yet this case study also demonstrates that the structure in which the expert network produced specific knowledge is still dominant and that a constant scrutiny of the role of an expert network remains critical.     

Screens and teens with migraines: visually sensitive learners in contemporary digital classrooms

Technology-rich school classrooms incorporate digital media in the form of computers and interactive whiteboards into the visual learning environment. Whilst evidence-based research shows use of technology improves academic outcomes for high school students in general, there are limited data available on the consequences of digital media use for high school students with migraine. This article highlights the historical issues with light-emitting media, the physical parameters that are changed by adoption of these digital media into the classroom and some of the adverse effects caused by visual light stimulation. The article concludes by calling for further social research to better understand adjustments needed by students with migraine in the digital media classroom, and the policies needed to support image parameter guidelines for schools. In this article, the term visual light sensitivity refers to any student’s abnormal sensitivity to optically sighted light leading to negative responses, including that of migraine.     

Expert Testimony Influences Juror Decisions in Criminal Trials Involving Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

We examined the impact of expert witness orientation (researcher or clinical practitioner) and type of testimony (testimony for the prosecution, defense, both prosecution and defense, or no testimony) on mock jurors’ decisions in a sexual abuse trial. Participants acted as mock jurors on a sexual abuse criminal trial based on recovered memory that included expert witness testimony. Results showed that expert witness testimony provided by a researcher did not impact mock jurors’ guilt ratings any differently than the expert witness testimony provided by a clinical practitioner. However, type of testimony had a significant effect on jurors’ guilt ratings such that jurors who read only defense or only prosecution testimony made decisions favoring the relevant side.     

Expert Systems

Summary

Expert systems are computer programs which embody the expertise of a human expert in order to consult and advise on a specific problem. It is now becoming feasible to apply expert systems technology to problems in the human services. This article describes what expert systems technology is and how it may be applied in human service practice. Finally, some of the promises and pitfalls of this new technology are addressed.