Blind child

[Lil Light Foot]

This may well be the wrong area to put this in, but, how do you describe a rainbow to a child which was born blind? They wouldn't know the colours, shapes etc. Also, along the same lines, as people who can hear think in their mother tongue, have an internal dialogue so to speak. How do people who are deaf from birth think? If they've never heard anything in their life, how can they think in sounds?

[spidergoat]

I wouldn't. I'd play the piano for the blind, paint pictures for the deaf. Not everyone thinks in language. Autistic people, for instance, think in images.

[J.B]

I wouldn't.

So if a blind child asked you what a rainbow was, you would just start playing the piano?

Well at least you would teach them what a weird dude was.

[spidergoat]

I could sweep the keys from top to bottom in an audio representation of a rainbow.

[Lil Light Foot]

I could sweep the keys from top to bottom in an audio representation of a rainbow

That's a really nice way of doing it, a blind child can understand sounds, so playing the scale on the piano would be a good representation, what about the deaf child and thinking idea? Do you think they think in images rather than sounds?

[alexb123]

Red is hot, yellow is warm etc. And remember they prob already know black so that is a starting point.

And they can feel a rainbow shape if you put half a cake on its side.

[Kunax]

Not everyone think in words, some people are more inclinded to think in "pictures", i would imagin this is more powerfull for deaf people, anyway they do have a language, sign language, and some can read lips.

I cannot imaging being blind, that most be hard, i wonder how they persive the world around then in there mind.

[spidergoat]

That's a really nice way of doing it, a blind child can understand sounds, so playing the scale on the piano would be a good representation, what about the deaf child and thinking idea? Do you think they think in images rather than sounds?

Maybe, or they may think in written language. Depends how they were taught.

[Lil Light Foot]

Maybe, or they may think in written language. Depends how they were taught

How would very young children which hadn't been taught written language think then? Could they possibly think in terms of facial expressions and other such images?

Could you possibly describe the world around a blind person to them in terms of textures as well as sounds?

[spidergoat]

Thinking isn't done primarily with language. We are taught to filter thinking through language because it's more conducive to communication, but I don't think it originates that way. What do children think about? Tastes, events, social relationships, future pleasures? ...none of these require language.

[Kunax]

maybe blind people form there own world within there mind from birth, with the shapes and colors as they think they be or as they "see them"

[Qorl]

With your own feelings, a good moment you had or like a spidergoat.