Pragmatic functions of blind and sighted children's language: a twin case study

Abstract

Results are presented from a longitudinal study on the acquisition of Spanish by twin girls, one of whom was blind, the other of whom was sighted. Analyses were undertaken of the MLU of the subjects from the age of 2;5 to 3;5, and on the functional categories used by both children. The data indicate that (1) the blind girl had a slightly higher MLU than her sighted sister, and (2) the two girls exhibited differences in their pragmatic uses of language. While the blind girl used language for referring to her own actions, with more routines, calls and repetitions, the sighted child tended to use language in a way which was more bound up with external reality and social interchanges. Both children seemed to have different strategies for learning language, the blind one being closer to the Gestalt type.