Elements of language competence by visually impaired children: Verbalisms

Abstract

Language and language capabilities of visually impaired persons have been considered within more research subjects. Special attention has been drawn to the role of sight in speech development and, in this contest, in using of words, for which adequate sensorial basis does not exist, i.e. in verbalisms. Since the moment Toth has found out that blind persons use words without adequate perceptive basis until nowadays, many researchers have published their works to this subject, through relatively different research, but with the same objective, to prove the tendency of the blind to use so-called „visual terms„ in their active speaking. The problem of using those terms has been actualized in 1980s, with the expansion of integrated education, as the teachers in secondary schools faced with the dilemma, whether to use visual terms in the classroom. Regarding the importance of these terms in the area of social participation, the attitude of the author is that they should not be excluded from the educational practice, but that efforts should be made for visually impaired children to ensure their multi-sensorial experience, so that they can as successful as possible harmonize their language structures with the cognitive ones.

Jezik i jezičke sposobnosti osoba sa oštećenjem vida razmatrani su u okviru više istraživačkih tema. Posebna pažnja je posvećena ulozi vida u razvoju govora i u tom kontekstu upotrebi reči za koje ne postoji adekvatna senzorna osnova, odnosno verbalizmima. Od momenta kada je Toth (1928) konstatovao da slepi koriste reči bez adekvatne perceptivne osnove do današnjih dana veliki broj istraživača je dao radove na ovu temu, kroz relativno različito projektovana istraživanja, ali sa istim ciljem ustanovljenja tendencije slepih da u svom aktivnom govoru koriste tzv. "vizuelne termine". Problem upotrebe ovih termina aktuelizovan je osamdesetih godina sa ekspanzijom integrisanog školovanja kada su se nastavnici redovnih škola našli pred dilemom da li da vizuelne termine koriste u svom govoru u učionici. S obzirom na značaj ovih termina u području socijalne participacije stav autora je da ih ne treba isključivati iz obrazovne prakse, ali da treba nastojati da se deci sa oštećenjem vida obezbede multisenzorna iskustva kako bi što uspešnije usklađivala jezičke i kognitivne strukture.