Study of an inclusive intervention programme in pictorial perception with blind and sighted students

Abstract

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention programme administered to blind and sighted school students. The students were given information concerning style, author and technique of three paintings from three different artistic periods, as well as guidelines to assess the overall aesthetics of each image. This programme was administered to 28 participants: 7 totally blind (the entire population of blind students in Castilla-La Mancha) and 21 sighted peers. Several methods of accessibility, such as verbal description of the content, sounds from the scenes and music from the artistic period, were implemented. Blind students were provided with tactile diagrams instead of reproductions of the paintings. A performance test was designed to assess qualitative and quantitative aspects and the collected data were analysed. Learning outcomes of blind and sighted students were compared after intervention and one month later. We found no significant differences between blind and sighted peers in content acquisition or aesthetic appreciation of the images. These results support the suitability of common accessible instructional strategies for the inclusion of blind students.

Keywords:

• Blindness
• art education
• painting
• access for the disabled
• pupil integration

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the National Organisation of the Blind in Spain (ONCE) and to teaching assistants from this organisation. We also thank to the teachers of arts who assisted in the evaluation process (Arancha García Sanz, Maricarmen de los Pinos García, Lucía Guijarro Casados, Fernando Olivares García, Beatriz Molina Díez-Canseco, Emma Martín Amigo, Santos Martínez Guerrero), as well as the schools that participated in this experience.