What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to KnowWright, John Dutton
Science
What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know
Wright, John Dutton
Deaf children
If he can recognize his father or mother or brothers and sisters at a
distance of a hundred feet he can see far enough for all practical
purposes. If he readily finds a small object like a pin or a small black
bead when dropped on the floor, his sight is sharp enough at short range
to serve his purposes. If his attention can be attracted by waving a
hand or a little flag or a flower fifty or sixty degrees on either side
of the direction in which he is looking, that is, two-thirds of the way
to the side of his head, his angle of vision is sufficiently wide. If he
can pick out from seven balls of worsted of the seven primary
colors--red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet--the ball
that matches another of the same color, he is at least not color-blind
and has a sufficient sense of color for the ordinary purposes of life.
It may be necessary to wait till eighteen months for a satisfactory
color test. Color blindness, when present, is usually most apparent in a
failure to distinguish between red and green, these two widely differing
colors seeming to produce the same impression upon the color-blind eye.
The child will be just as likely to choose a red ball to match the green
one in his hand as to select another red ball. But repeated tests should
be made before accepting color blindness as a fact, since sometimes the
brain can be educated to discriminate between red and green even when
the impressions have not the normal degree of difference.
The tests for taste, smell, muscular sense, touch, and memory cannot be
made with much thoroughness or satisfaction till two years of age,
though observation will show a recognition by taste and smell of that
which is agreeable and that which is disagreeable. Accurate tests of
hearing cannot be made till the child is three or four, but it is
possible when he is twelve months old to determine whether the hearing
is normal or is seriously impaired, and it is very desirable that this
should be done.
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