Metaphor comprehension by the congenitally blind children

Abstract EN

Vision has great significance in building our cognition and language.

One glance is enough for constructing and storing many concepts about the world around.

Language is a reflection to those stored concepts.

How does loosing of this most important sense effects metaphor comprehension? It is one of the most linguistic phenomena should be effected because it depends on comparing two objects or concepts to indicate one of them in terms of the other.

The designed test has included 52 children, 26 blind children as variable group and 26 sighted children as control group.

Each of these groups is divided into two sub-groups, older group (children who have passed the critical period or the age of 12) and younger group (children who have not passed it yet).

The subject have exposed to 80 metaphors constructed within a short story.

Results of this study show that congenitally blind children can comprehend metaphor like sighted ones, but they have later onset.

They also indicate that blind children who have passed the age of twelve are equal, in their ability in understanding metaphor, to the sighted children who have not passed this age yet.