Discriminating textures with students who are blind or visually impaired

By Activity Bank on Dec 31, 2013

This activity has been revised and was originally created by Mary Jane Clark and published in the Perkins Activity and Resource Guide (1st edition, 1992). The second edition is available for purchase.

As a precursor to learning braille, this activity works on tactile discrimination, sorting, and object identification. Lessons include Math, English Language Arts, and Independent Living Skills.

Materials

Three boxes and an assortment of common items found in the student’s environment: toothbrush, spoon, shoe, pillow, stuffed animal. Introduce new items often. Select a wide variety of objects and textures.

Procedure

Select a group of objects that have two greatly different attributes such as rough and smooth.
Place all the items in a box.
Have the student select an item from the box and identify the item as rough or smooth.

This activity can also be set up as a sorting task:

Place the box containing all the items in the center of the table.
Place two empty boxes on either side of the center box, and designate one for rough items and the other for smooth items.
Have the student identify the attribute of the item and place it in the appropriate box.

Variations

As the student’s tactual discrimination skills develop, increase the difficulty. For example, have the student sort different clothing textures or various grades of sandpaper.

textures collage