Spatial Representation in Blind Children. 3: Effects of Individual Differences

Theories of spatial representation in blind people have focused on the type of representation of which they, as a group, are capable. This approach overlooks an important issue, namely, the differences among individual blind people and the effects that these differences have on the way spatial information is represented. Data from another article by the author on the same study of spatial representation in blind children were subjected to two step-wise regression analyses to determine the relationships between several subject-related variables and responses to “map” (cognitive map) and “route” (sequential memory) questions about the position of furniture in a recently explored room. The independent variables accounted for 70 percent of the variance on map questions but only 46 percent of the variance on route questions. On map questions, general intellectual ability correlated positively with performance (p < .01), children with visual acuity better than light perception in the first 3 years of life performed better than those with less early vision (p < .05), and children who became blind from retrolental fibroplasia performed more poorly than those whose blindness was due to other causes (p < .05). Fewer independent variables contributed to the variance in performance on route questions. Again children with visual acuity better than light perception in their first 3 years performed better than those with less early vision.