Blind People: Their Bodies, Space, and Mental Representation

Abstract

The problem to which we seek to find an answer, as an interdisciplinary research team, concerns the spatial difficulties and mental representations that blind people face in order to develop their lives with dignity.

The methodological approach is centered on heuristics; that is, on the knowledge, maturation, and projection of the individual’s strengths, in search of their genuine expression as a member of society.

The effort that blind children must make in the learning process involves developing the capacity for movement, spatial orientation, and the recognition of objects.

As a method, we approach the knowledge of space from the body, while also seeking to help blind children and adolescents achieve a mental representation of it. This learning process is facilitated through scale representations, such as models and dolls. The work involves exploring what is nearby and accessible to touch, but also, by means of a ladder, seeking to reach what is often inaccessible: the ceiling.

Our objective is to work toward a spatial education in which blind children and adolescents construct their own cognitive tools in order to orient themselves in the different spaces in which their lives unfold. In this way, we seek to help them compose a global image of the relationship between their body in space, objects, and other people. For them, cognitive contents imply an expansion of their intellectual possibilities and of their understanding of the environment.

We conclude that our work provides blind people with new possibilities for becoming active members of society. For us, as sighted people, it also means learning to communicate from and through difference.