Rhythms and rhymes: developing communication in very young blind and multihandicapped children

Communicative behaviours develop in early infancy. Blind and multihandicapped infants are at risk in developing social signal behaviours that serve the purpose of signalling the attention of adults and engaging adults in shared interactions and social routines. Primary intersubjectivity or adult-infant interaction has been shown to provide the matrix in which communicative behaviours are acquired. The social routine is one form of adult-infant interaction in which mutuality and shared attention to the same event is developed. The results of this study indicate that very young blind and multihandicapped children can develop intentional and communicative behaviours in the course of social routines based on traditional nursery rhymes. Of particular interest were the youngest subjects who were 15 months-2 years and 3 months at the start of the study. These subjects demonstrated a variety of social responses to interaction with adults. Their responsiveness was expressed in the modalities that were most accessible to them. The physically handicapped children used vocalization as a primary mode of communication, while the physically active depended on physical gestures and postures.