Social characteristics of visually impaired infants’ play

This cross-sectional study explores the extent to which the visually impaired infant and mother are able to use play to facilitate rewarding social interactions. Mother-child interactions were observed in 21 visually impaired infants and 16 nonhandicapped infants. From videotape ratings of five child behaviors and five maternal behaviors, significant differences were found in several variables. Visually impaired infants demonstrated fewer periods of positive vocalization and positive responses to the mother, fewer social initiations to the mother, more negative vocalizations, more periods of negative affect, and more ignoring of the mother than did the controls. Mothers of visually impaired infants demonstrated less en-facing positioning, fewer positive vocalizations, and more periods of neutral vocalizations than did the mothers of nonhandicapped children.