An infant suffering with hearing loss can suffer severe effects on the early attachment made between themselves and their parents. Deaf children are often unable to recognise the association between facial expressions and vocal tones that carry affective meaning (Spelke and Cortelyou, 1981). It has also been suggested many times that deaf children are less likely than hearing children to develop secure attachments to their mothers, but it may be that this disrupted pattern of attachment is due to difficulties in early communication rather than a failure to bond.
When studying the emotional development of the those with hearing impediments, Odom, Blanton, & Laukhuf (1973) found that deaf children aged between seven and eight years found it difficult to match facial expressions with the appropriate situation in a picture identification task. A possible explanation for this might be that the children are not able to experience a range of emotions and so it is impossible for them to understand what these emotions are and mean, and what consequences they have. If you are trying to explain to a deaf child that something they are doing is wrong, all you can say is no, and make that point clear. You can not explain to them why it is wrong as they cannot grasp the connection between an event and its outcome. This means that they lose the experience of developing their understanding of the effects of their own as well as others behaviours through discussion. Because their parents have to be dominant and use severe punishment techniques, this may affect the development of the autonomy and self-esteem of the children (Gregory, 1995). Children who are deaf may also show delays and difficulties in taking roles and moral reasoning (Kushe and Greenberg, 1983; Couch, 1985)
Young deaf children may spend less time in co-operative play with their friends than hearing children. This may be because of the difficulty of dividing attention between their surroundings and each other, and because of their reduced knowledge of the skills of interaction (Lederberg, 1993) They do not understand how it is they should be playing with their friends, and at an age where there will be many children playing together a young deaf child may find this hard as they need their friends to focus on them, and at a young age other children do not understand this. As the children get older, the games they play can become increasingly dependant on their language skills. Playground games tend to have various rules and instructions, and even if a deaf child is able to understand the linguistics, their use of language will still be less than that of a hearing child (Lederberg, 1993). Deaf children have a tendency to be left out of games with hearing children (Gregory, 1995), and this would limit the number of friends they are able to make, and the places in which they meet them. At school for example a teacher can point out a child’s difficulty in hearing, and help the other children to understand the situation, and play as normal with the deaf child. The progress of friendships can be monitored. In a park or street for example, a deaf child is likely to be more limited in the friendships they make, as the other children are less likely to understand or co-operate with the deaf child. Lederberg found that whilst temporary and sometimes long term friendships can be formed, they are likely to more fragile and have less stability than those of all hearing children.
Visually impaired children are either described as having serious defects likely to cause a disabling impairment of vision ranging from partial sightedness to complete blindness, or more common problems such as a squint, colour blindness etc which have less incapacitating consequences. A child is when they have no vision or only limited light perception, and a child is severely visually impaired when the child has a limited amount of vision.
Children who are blind from and early age have difficulty when interacting. Their early years can often be very traumatic as they have difficulty understanding their feelings, thoughts and inner world (Corley and Pring, 1996). They are unable to perceive the emotions and perspectives of others, and are in some ways trapped in the limits of their own imagination. The only world they view is the one that they have described to them. All pictures in their mind are formed from verbal descriptions only. As a result of this they may show repetitive or stereotyped behaviours such as rocking, head shaking, or repeating sounds. (Hobson Brown, Minter, Lee.1997) Blind children often become still when listening, instead of looking towards the source of sound and children with poor peripheral vision may swing their heads from side to side when walking in order to scan the environment.
The symbolic play of blind children may be delayed, they may engage less with other children than their sighted peers may, and they show passive tendencies (Troster & Brambring, 1994). When at school the blind children will have difficulties when they have to locate toys, and ongoing events, and to join in with other children. This can leave them lacking solid friendships and feeling isolated, and having to depend on the teaching staff around them (Kekelis and Sacks, 1992; Preisler, 1997). Wolffe and Sacks (1997) conducted interviews to compare the opportunities of adolescents with full sight compared to those with low vision or functional blindness. The results found that those with the impairment had a narrower range of employment opportunities, required more support from adults, and had fewer social interactions compared to those with normal sight. They were also more likely to interact with friends who also had a visual impairment, and were more likely to be involved in social and leisure activities that were passive and solitary or of a moderate intensity such as listening to music or talking on the phone. Visual Impairments do have an effect on a child’s development but they are not necessarily going to cause severe and long-term social and emotional difficulties if the child has no additional disabilities, and is growing up in an environment that is supportive and sensitive to their needs. Studies have found that the effect of visual impairments may be less influential on social development compared to hearing or learning difficulties. Land and Vineberg (1965) found that development may be slightly slower than normal, but that it still follows roughly the same course.
The investigation of children with visual and hearing impairments can help psychologists to understand the ways in which the lack of these forms of sensory inputs affect development and also help to show the importance of these forms of sensory input to a child’s development.
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