[Social-sciences-list] Blindness and Social Cues

[Ellana Crew]

Hello there,

This may not be quite the right place to ask this question, but I was interested in knowing if anybody knows of any research regarding blindness and the ability to pick up on social cues. I run a blog on blindness on Tumblr, and I have noticed that I bury frequently get asked questions about whether a person's difficulty understanding social cues of a wide variety has anything to do with their blindness or is related instead to autism. Typically these messages begin saying that they and their family have noticed many symptoms of autism, but that they are having difficulties getting diagnosed because many doctors they try to see will tell them that it very well may just be due to their vision. Of course, it has been my experience surrounded by blind people that the vast majority of the time, we do not have hardly any difficulty picking up on social cues such as a person's tone or understanding bits of body language without requiring sight when we do not have any other disabilities, so I usually do my best to explain this using my own experience with myself and the other blind people I know and interact with, but I would like to give people some more definitive information if it is out there anywhere. To me, it looks as though most of the doctors these people are seeing about a possible autism diagnosis know very little about blindness and are making the assumption, so if there is any research showing any kind of link or lack there of between blindness and ability to pick up on social cues, I would very much like to have this as a resource to help answer this question since I receive it so frequently.

If anybody knows where I might be able to find information about this, I would be incredibly appreciative!

Ellana Crew, Vice President
Maryland Association of Blind Students
Website: nfbmd.org/students
Facebook: facebook.com/mdabs.federation
Twitter: @MDABS_NFB

The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.