Displaying easily recognizable tactile pictures: A comparison of three illustration techniques with blind and sighted children

Illustrated books hold a special place in children's early literacy development. However, blind children have little access to them and there is no guarantee that they can easily understand tactile pictures. There are several designs of tactile illustrations, each leading to different identification performances. Our study aimed to compare three designs of tactile illustration in two populations (36 blindfolded sighted children and 18 blind children) in order to better understand the factors that influence haptic recognition of tactile pictures. On the one hand, we assessed the advisability of using new technology such as pin array tablets which showed encouraging results. On the other hand, we questioned the need for a figurative shape in tactile pictures when information about texture was already provided. The main result of our study is that when given texture information, blind children do not seem to need additional information to associate a picture with a word.