Development of Object Permanence in Visually Impaired Infants

Abstract

The development of object permanence skills in 20 visually impaired infants between the ages of 4 and 25 months was examined longitudinally. Other areas of development which were examined in relationship to object permanence included motor skills, various aspects of language and social adaptation, symbolic play, and stranger and separation distress. Parallels to object permanence development in sighted infants that were found included order of skill acquisition and the span of time across which the skills were mastered. The visually impaired subjects as a group were 8 to 12 months older than the sighted infants at the time of similar object permanence skills, but the greater maturity of the visually impaired subjects seemed to be demonstrated in the lack of A—B error and the ability of visually impaired infants to perform the tasks on the basis of discontinuous sensory information. No relationships between object permanence levels and either symbolic play abilities and separation or stranger distress were found.