Visual Impairment as a Factor in the Development of Imagination in Primary School Children

The article presents the results of an empirical study of the main characteristics of imagination – speed, flexibility and originality, as well as their relationship with the ability to generalize as one of the main operations of thinking and academic performance in primary school children with visual impairment in comparison with normotypic primary school students. The quantitative and qualitative features of imagination in children with visual impairments in comparison with their normotypic peers have been revealed. In general, there are differences in the level, degree of development and features of imagination in children with normal vision and with impaired vision. There are no gender differences in the level characteristics of imagination. However, there are differences in the content of imaginative images in the groups of subjects. In children with visual impairments, they are impoverished, schematic, and often have a monotonous, stereotypical character. It is established that the degree of change in the characteristics of imagination is determined by the complexity of the characteristic itself. The closer it is to the basic, formal-dynamic (speed of imagination), the less its degree of discrepancy between children of the ordinary class and children with visual impairments. The more complex the characterization of imagination, the greater the differences in it appear in these two groups.