[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] Danish article Drawing can be an educational offer for blind children and picture database

[Lisa Yayla]

Hi,
I thought this article would be of interest, it is from the Danish 
Sysnshandicap journal issue no. 1 2005.
The article is entitled Drawing Can Also be an Educational Offer for 
Blind Children by Birgit Møller. She writes about a 5 year old blind 
girl with ability to see a bit of light who since very young two years, 
showed interest for drawing. The article describes this as coming about 
because of the little girls interest of being together with the other 
children at the day cay center and participating in the same activities 
as the other children. The drawing table is a social arena for the 
children where they can discuss, tell and ask each other; tell about 
shared experiences, who is going to pick them up, who is arriving, what 
they are drawing etc. Møller continues discussing the child s drawing 
development
1 playing with the pencils
2 small doodles i a corner of the paper, changing crayons
3 doodles become larger
4 at about 3 years makes dots in cardboard, fills up half the page
5 about 4 years makes more open forms and paper filled up more. Is 
playing with play dough and making people like forms. The adults make 
and they roll play with the forms eg. walk around the house, make 
furniture. She draws with drawing plastic
6. about 4 years more open forms, draws round forms with lines. They 
begin to see these look like recognizable things e.g bus
7. just 5 years suddenly she draws recognizable things, people, faces, 
eyes, moth hair, neck arm and legs
8. She draws a whole family,   with things bridal veil, umbrella, rain. 
More detail. She makes small very recognizable things, babys in bed, 
pillows,blankets
Once she starts to use drawing plastic her drawing development quickly 
accelerates. They also use a crayon that leaves a surface that  can be 
felt..
The articles author ends by saying that it was very exciting to follow 
her development and see her enormous interest for the sourounding world 
and other children.

One of the things I liked about this article was the description of the 
drawing table at the day care center as a social area.
The reason I though this compliments the article, about among others the 
blind designer, is that it is about the visually impaired person doing. 
As a designer of graphics, I feel that by exposer to graphics allows one 
to understand more complicated graphic information (among other things), 
however perhaps the best way to develop this understanding, like in so 
many other fields, is by doing.

Also in the same periodical an article about Refsnæs picture database. 
Refsnæs is one of Denmaks centers for VI. The pictures are colored with 
high contrast and can be used freely for non-comercial uses.
http://www.synref.dk/billedbasen

All the best,
Lisa