The World Expands

Was working with Bean today on the floor, with her Olivia doll, showing her the hands, the nose, the ears, the legs, etc. We've been talking to her about her OWN body parts and she's usually pretty good at finding them, but I was curious to see if her spatial memory would extend past herself.

I showed her the basic appendages, then asked her to locate them by herself. You could see the wheels turning as she thought for a minute, then reached out...and found them. Sometimes she would run her hands over the whole doll, as if to memorize the reference points, then there, there's the nose. There are the ears. There's the dress. She really really really was creating a whole out of parts. This is how visually impaired kids have to sort out the world...you don't see the whole and then pick out the discrete parts. You have to cobble together an "image" of the whole from the various parts you're given.

I don't have to expound on how thrilled and relieved I was to have her do this.