Abstract
It is considered to be difficult to facilitate the development of children who are blind without a special educational environment and teaching materials that can be easily perceived through haptics. In order to facilitate the cognitive development of children who are blind, it is important to use objects that are easy to perceive through haptics with tasks such as comparing, classifying, and discriminating. The purpose of the present study was to examine effects of weight in a cylinder block task on the fine motor skills of children who are blind. Participants in the experiment, 12 children who were blind (mean age: 7 years 3 months) and 9 toddlers with normal vision (mean age: 21 months), were given a cylinder block task in which the weight of the cylinder was varied. The results supported the efficacy of weight as a factor for children who are blind, and thus suggests the importance of using weighted objects with such children. The discussion included the following speculation as to why this might be so: (a) a weighted cylinder is easier to manipulate; (b) a weighted cylinder facilitates fine motor adjustment, (c) it is easier to adjust the direction of a weighted cylinder, and (d) for children who are blind, a weighted cylinder makes conclusions easier to understand.
