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DESCRIPTION: A graphic of the Perkins logo swoops across
the screen, revealing a chapter heading:
MILES: I think that those of us who can see and hear
take for granted the role of vision and hearing
in connecting us with other people.
I mean, I can be looking at you or someone nearby or far away,
and we can make eye contact, and that can immediately give me
a sense of connection and belonging.
And for a child who can't do that, who can't look
with their eyes and see and feel that sense of connection,
sometimes that can be a hard thing to establish--
but it's not impossible.
( laughing )
It's absolutely possible if we realize that we can
make that connection in other ways, and often,
it's through touch.
DESCRIPTION: A video clip shows a blond haired boy
in a blue sweatshirt sitting at a water table.
The boy, who is blind, uses his hands to explore the table top.
Barbara Miles sits next to the corner of the table and extends
her arm for the boy to discover.
When he becomes aware of her presence, she moves closer,
allowing him to touch her face.
MILES: There was a woman named Selma Fraiberg who did some
studies a while ago, and she looked at children
who were born blind who couldn't pick up on
their mother's smiles, for example.
And typically, a mother and child exchange a lot of smiles
in the early days, and fathers and children, as well.
DESCRIPTION: In a photograph, a mother sits on a couch
and holds her infant in front of her.
The baby gazes at his mother's face, and she smiles broadly
back at him.
MILES: What she noticed was that when the blind child
didn't have the ability to see the mother's smile,
that back and forth reciprocity, that turn-taking,
got interrupted.
But she also noticed that the blind babies tended to smile
in other ways then using just their face.
Because what had happened was the mothers had gotten
depressed when their babies weren't smiling back
because there wasn't that reciprocity,
but Selma Fraiberg noticed that... that the babies
were smiling with their bodies-- with their hands, with...
they were smiling in different ways, not necessarily
with their faces.
And when she pointed that out to the mothers and to the partners
of those children and showed them to look for the babies'
happiness in different places-- like in their hands; often,
the babies would smile with their hands--
then the reciprocity was established again,
and they could have wonderful little turn-taking interactions,
and the mother didn't get sad so much about having a child
that couldn't engage in that.
DESCRIPTION: A boy, who is blind, sits on the lap
of a woman who with short, dark hair, and they rock
from side to side.
The boy faces away from the woman.
She is sharing his movements by gently following his hands
as he touches his head and mouth.
Fade to black.