Original Article
Affective Reciprocity and the Development of Autonomy: The Study of a Blind Infant

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Abstract

This study describes the development of affect and the system of communication evolving between a congenitally blind infant and her resourceful parents. The study is based on systematic videotaped observations from birth through age 15½ months. The organizing principle of the study lies in the tracing of the evolution of dyadic reciprocity and the accompanying unfolding of ever-increasing competence of the infant. The study demonstrates that this infant's development proceeds largely along normal lines, with occasional regression preceding new accomplishments. It is hypothesized that with support, resourceful parents can from the beginning understand the distorted signals their infant displays as part of his grappling to realize normal developmental goals. This, it seems, prevents the commonly observed stereotypic rigidities and restrictions of blind infants and leads to a mutually energizing process of rich and modulated development for infant and parent.

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This study was supported byGrant #3122 from theWilliam T. Grant Foundation, New York, and was presented at the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, Toronto, 1976.

We would like to express our deep appreciation to the Simons family for allowing us to observe their first year with their daughter, Marci Beth, and to publisb those obseruations. We would also like to thank Ms. Swan Palm er for her help with the videotape analyses and Ms. Nancy Kozak for editing the manuscript.

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