Resumo

FLORES-MENDOZA, Carmen; CARVALHO, Tathiana Martins de  e  RODRIGUES, Larissa Assunção. Cognitive profile of blind children: A study with the verbal scale of WISC-III. Bol. psicol [online]. 2009, vol.59, n.130, pp. 103-115. ISSN 0006-5943.

The information about the cognitive function of blind children is insufficient in the specialized literature. The presentstudy was designed for this reason, using the Verbal Scale of WISC-III. In this studyparticipated 120 blind children, aged 6 to 16 years old, from two institutions of Belo Horizonte (MG). From this total were selected 56 children with IQ over 85 and their performances were compared with a sample of 56 sighted children. The intra group results (blind children) showed the occurrence of developmental changes with the age, inexistence of cognitive differences related to gender or visual capacity (blindness and subnormal vision). The intergroups results (blind and sighted children) indicated a significantstatistic diference in the Freedom from Distractibility factor favoring blind children. However, it was found that the differences were limited to the Digit subtest. Also, the differences in Digits were restricted to high verbal IQ groups, which reinforce the cognitive differentiation hypothesis.

Palavras-chave : Blind children; Intelligence; IQ verbal; WISC-III.