Characteristics of peer play in children with visual impairments.
A small sound cue raises cooperative play in kids with visual impairments who start off low in social interaction.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched 62 elementary students with visual impairments during free play.
They coded every cooperative, symbolic, and social move the kids made.
Age, language scores, and gender were tracked to see what shaped play.
What they found
Older kids, girls, and those with stronger language played together more.
Kids who rarely cooperated at first played more when toys made sounds.
The sound boost was small but quick—no extra teaching needed.
How this fits with other research
Dai et al. (2023) and Sasson et al. (2022) also upped play in kids with disabilities, but they used weeks of peer training.
Charlop et al. (1992) got the same lift by simply teaching short pretend scripts.
These studies seem to clash—big programs vs. tiny sound cue—but the kids differ.
The 2020 kids had only visual loss; the others had autism plus language delays.
When language is limited, peers and scripts do the heavy lifting.
When language is fine but vision is poor, a quick beep or chime is enough.
Why it matters
You can skip long peer-training if the child’s main barrier is vision, not language.
Tape a bell inside a ball or use a beeping car.
One simple sound cue can spark cooperative play right away while you plan bigger goals.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Although many studies report children with vision impairments (VIs) experience play difficulties compared to sighted peers, large variation is present within the population of children with VIs. AIMS: The present study investigated peer play variation in 70 elementary school-aged children with VIs (M age = 8;11 years, SD = 2.25) and associations with specific child characteristics in sub-groups of participants. Also, it was examined how play materials with supportive auditory cues affected social play in children with varying cooperative play skills. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Play behavior was coded while participants used play materials with and without auditory cues and parents filled in questionnaires about child characteristics. Data were analyzed using binomial logistic regression analyses. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Although the profoundness of the VI was not associated to cooperative or symbolic play, age, language ability and gender did predict the demonstration of these play behaviors. Furthermore, auditory cues were particularly facilitative of social play in children with VIs with low cooperative play capabilities. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: In sum, this emphasizes that child characteristics other than the VI can play a significant role during peer play and interaction, and that individual variation should be considered when providing peer play support.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2020 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2020.103714