Comprehension of a multimodal book by children with visual impairments

Illustrations referring to the visible aspects of objects in tactile books may be difficult for children with visual impairments to understand. To solve this problem, a new illustration design was developed based on modalities other than vision. The objective of the study is to evaluate the comprehension by children with visual impairments of a multimodal book whose illustrations refer to haptic and audio modalities. To examine the role of residual visual experience in comprehension, the book was tested in children with two profiles of visual impairment: 5 blind children and 6 with low vision, aged 5–12 years. To assess their comprehension as they discovered the book, we observed a matching between the text and the exploration of the illustrations, and the production of expected manual explorations by children. After discovery, we asked the children about how they handled the objects in the book and the sounds they heard. The main results showed no significant difference between the two groups of children on the matching score, manual exploration expected, and description of sounds perceived or handling performed. The book was very well understood and appreciated by both groups. These results could indicate that residual visual experience is not necessary for this task. Results suggest that exploring other sensorial experiences could be a more inclusive way to represent objects in tactile books that are more suitable for all children, regardless of their visual experience.