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<DIV><FONT size=2>This is a very fascinating article. I always wondered, because
so much emphasis is put on eye contact.</FONT></DIV>
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<H1 id=page-title class="asset-name entry-title">Children of Blind Mothers Learn
New Modes of Communication</H1>
<DIV class=asset-meta sizset="1" sizcache="11"><SPAN class=byline>by Elizabeth
Norton </SPAN>on <ABBR class=published title="10 April 2013">10 April 2013,
11:45 AM</ABBR> <SPAN class=separator>|</SPAN> </DIV></DIV>
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<DIV class=image-caption><STRONG>Back at you.</STRONG> Babies of blind mothers
can still read the faces of the sighted.</DIV>
<DIV class=image-credit>Credit: <SPAN>iStockphoto/Thinkstock</SPAN></DIV></DIV>
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<P nodeIndex="1">A loving gaze helps firm up the bond between parent and child,
building social skills that last a lifetime. But what happens when mom is blind?
A new study shows that the children of sightless mothers develop healthy
communication skills and can even outstrip the children of parents with normal
vision. </P>
<P nodeIndex="2">Eye contact is one of the most important aspects of
communication, according to Atsushi Senju, a developmental cognitive
neuroscientist at Birkbeck, University of London. Autistic people don't
naturally make eye contact, however, and they can become anxious when urged to
do so. Children for whom face-to-face contact is drastically reduced—babies
severely neglected in orphanages or children who are born blind—are more likely
to have traits of autism, such as the inability to form attachments,
hyperactivity, and cognitive impairment. </P>
<P nodeIndex="3">To determine whether eye contact is essential for developing
normal communication skills, Senju and colleagues chose a less extreme example:
babies whose primary caregivers (their mothers) were blind. These children had
other forms of loving interaction, such as touching and talking. But the mothers
were unable to follow the babies' gaze or teach the babies to follow theirs,
which normally helps children learn the importance of the eyes in communication.
</P>
<P nodeIndex="4">Apparently, the children don't need the help. Senju and
colleagues studied five babies born to blind mothers, checking the children's
proficiency at 6 to 10 months, 12 to 15 months, and 24 to 47 months on several
measures of age-appropriate communications skills. At the first two visits,
babies watched videos in which a woman shifted her gaze or moved different parts
of her face while corresponding changes in the baby's face were recorded. Babies
also followed the gaze of a woman sitting at a table and looking at various
objects. </P>
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<P nodeIndex="5">The babies also played with unfamiliar adults in a test that
checked for autistic traits, such as the inability to maintain eye contact, not
smiling in response to the adult's smile, and being unable to switch attention
from one toy to a new one. At each age, the researchers assessed the children's
visual, motor, and language skills. </P>
<P sizset="14" sizcache="11" nodeIndex="6">When the results were compared to
scores of children of "sighted" parents, the five <A
href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.0436">children
of blind mothers did just as well on the tests</A>, the researchers report today
in the <EM>Proceedings of the Royal Society B</EM>. Learning to communicate with
their blind mothers also seemed to give the babies some advantages. For example,
even at the youngest age tested, the babies directed fewer gazes toward their
mothers than to adults with normal vision, suggesting that they were already
learning that strangers would communicate differently than would their mothers.
When they were between 12 and 15 months old, the babies of blind mothers were
also more verbal than were other children of the same age. And the youngest
babies of blind mothers outscored their peers in developmental tests—especially
visual tasks such as remembering the location of a hidden toy or switching their
attention from one toy to a new one presented by the experimenter. </P>
<P nodeIndex="7">Senju likens their skills to those of children who grow up
bilingual; the need to shift between modes of communication may boost the
development of their social skills, he says. "Our results suggest that the
babies aren't passively copying the expressions of adults, but that they are
actively learning and changing the way to best communicate with others." </P>
<P nodeIndex="8">"The use of sighted babies of blind mothers is a clever and
important idea," says developmental scientist Andrew Meltzoff of the University
of Washington's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences in Seattle. "The
mother's blindness may teach a child at an early age that certain people turn to
look at things and others don't. Apparently these little babies can learn that
not everyone reacts the same way." </P>
<P nodeIndex="9">Meltzoff adds that there are many ways to pay attention to a
child. "Doubtless, the blind mothers use touch, sounds, tugs on the arm, and
tender pats on the back. Our babies want communication, love, and attention. The
fact that these can come through any route is a remarkable demonstration of the
adaptability of the human child." </P></DIV></DIV>
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