How to Help a Blind or Visually Impaired Child Socialize

Children learn social skills most often by watching and mimicking others. For this reason, blind children often struggle to socialize and make friends with their peers. Because blind children cannot learn from observation, be direct in telling them about social norms and cues. Explain the necessary skills for carrying on a conversation, expressing themselves, and entering a group. Teachers at school can help blind children by practicing social interactions and using a buddy system. Children can also join a social skills group to sharpen their skills and make friends.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Helping Your Child Communicate and Make Friends

1
Establish the importance of social skills. Building social skills in encourages positive healthy development. Bonding with siblings, parents, and family members provides a social safety net for the child. Connecting with peers increases self-esteem, self-worth, confidence and independence.
- Our social skills are also known as soft skills. Soft skills are needed while children interact with peer groups, teachers, and counselors at school, and with future employers as an adult. By teaching children these skills, you encourage positive growth and future success.
2
Set appropriate goals. Before helping a child socialize, you must first identify goals and expectations. Establish what it means to both you and the child to have good social skills. This will help you understand what the child feels they need and expect in addition to your social standards.
- A child who exhibits an extroverted personality may thrive more on social stimulation, and actively seek out a connection with others. A child who is more introverted and may need more encouragement to connect with others, and more alone time to recharge.
- Get to know the child's personality and what they feel comfortable with, and provide unconditional support. Never force a child to do something they don’t feel comfortable with.
- Those who are blind or visually impaired may sometimes feel that they are not as competent as their sighted peers. Be an advocate for them, and let them know that being visually impaired does not have to stop them from forming meaningful connections with others.
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3
Encourage conversation skills. Children who are blind often struggle to maintain conversations. A visually impaired child may have difficulty interpreting non-verbalized cues, and may feel reluctant to express their feelings or needs. They may need help learning how to engage in skills like carrying on a sustained conversation and staying engaged with another person. These are teachable skills, so work on them with your child.^{[1]XResearch source}
- Practice taking turns speaking, asking questions, and being interested in what the other person is saying or doing.
- If your child needs prompting, say, “I asked what you were doing, do you want to ask what I’m doing?”
4
Build their vocabulary. Blind children rely on words much more than other children do to express themselves. Help them express their thoughts, needs, and emotions by giving them the language to express themselves. Model how to express feelings by doing so yourself. For example, you can say, “I’m feeling frustrated because I cannot open this box.”^{[2]XResearch source}
- Label their feelings for them and help them gain the knowledge and vocabulary of how to state their thoughts and feelings. For example, you can say, “You seem sad that you can’t go to school today because you’re sick.”
5
Emphasize taking turns. Both in games and interactions, taking turns is an important skill that children learn. Teach your child to take turns with other children. Start with games so that they know that everyone gets a turn. Then, extend this to conversations. Tell them that it is impolite to only ask questions or only focus the conversation on themselves.^{[3]XResearch source}
- Your child must learn when it is appropriate to comment or ask a question and when it is appropriate to listen. If your child often interrupts, say, “Please don’t interrupt me. Wait until I’m finished and then you can talk.”
6
Encourage them to make friends. Push your child to make friends on their own without your help. Allow them to go to the park and play with other kids. Tell them to introduce themselves and then invite the children to play. Have your child invite another child over to play. Allow your child to initiate social interactions so that they can practice and make friends.^{[4]XResearch source}
- Invite children to come over to your house. This way, your child will be in a familiar environment and play with children comfortably.
- If an interaction goes poorly, talk about it with your child and brainstorm ways to improve for next time.
7
Build a support system. Talk to other parents of visually impaired children. They can be a great source of information and support on what it’s like to have a blind child. Your children can also become playmates. Ask questions about what it was like while their child made friends and how they overcame challenges.^{[5]XResearch source}
- Other parents can help you navigate problems, find resources, and give advice.
- Connect with a local group or find a support group online.
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Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Learning Nonverbal Cues

1
Build non-verbal communication skills. Talk about and identify common gestures used in speech. Teach your child how to gesture and explain why people use gestures while speaking. Discuss nonverbal behaviors and how they communicate sometimes just as much as words.^{[6]XResearch source}
- For example, nonverbal cues can indicate interest or disinterest, such as moving closer or further from someone who is speaking. Learning nonverbal cues can help your child communicate more effectively.
2
Teach personal space. Help your child understand that people enjoy having some space around them. Many people are off put by someone being either too far or too close to them while they speak. Teach your child to gauge their distance by the other person’s voice. If they are too near someone, gently encourage them to back up a bit.^{[7]XResearch source}
- If your child is not sure whether they are giving enough space or not, have them ask, “Am I crowding you?”
3
Talk about facial expressions. Blind children miss out on reading expressions on people’s faces that can clue them in on how they feel. Practice making faces together and discussing how they feel and why a person might make that face. Guide them to make these expressions and to feel them on your face.^{[8]XResearch source}
- Understanding expressions can help with understanding nonverbal cues and emotion.
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Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Building Skills in School

1
Help them adapt to a new environment. Remember that a visually impaired children will need support and guidance in the classroom. Remember to use verbal descriptions and implement or talk to teachers about hand-over-hand instructional approaches, while working from behind the child.
- Ask for or allow for additional time and repetition in the class. Ensure that the child is able to perform their social skills on their own in a new setting.
- Verbalize what things, people, and/or activities you see in the environment. Be as descriptive as possible. Label feelings, facial expressions and gestures, or other visual cues to help you child interpret responses and attach them to verbal cues.
2
Teach them how to enter a group. Teach the blind student to listen and observe a group interaction before jumping in. if they immediately jump in with a question or comment, other children may be put off or think the child is rude. The child can listen for who is talking and for the pace of the conversation before joining. That way, they can enter seamlessly without interrupting or jarring the conversation.^{[9]XResearch source}
- If they abruptly join a group, gently correct them by saying, “Let’s listen a bit longer before jumping in.”
3
Practice social interactions. Use scripts and modeling to teach skills. This can help children learn the words, gestures, and manners behind getting someone’s attention, speaking up in class, making friends, and making requests. Adults can model behaviors and children can begin to learn and practice patterns of social interaction.^{[10]XResearch source}
- For example, teach children to be polite and use manners and not depend on raising their voice to get someone’s attention.
4
Encourage friendships. Encourage sighted children and blind children to become friends. Encourage small groups to help the child feel included and for the other children to get to know the blind child. If children are scared or do not know how to interact with someone who is a little different, this can help them to realize they are more alike than not.^{[11]XResearch source}
- If classroom children are unfamiliar with blindness, have a parent or visually impaired adult come and speak to the classroom about what it means to be blind. This can help demystify blindness and take away any fears they might have.
5
Establish a buddy system. Have a buddy or a few mentors available to help the blind child interact socially. These people should model appropriate interactions and behavior. They can also show friendship skills and be companions for the child. Make sure the arrangement is set up to be cooperative and not about giving help to the blind child, as this may lead to dependence.^{[12]XResearch source}
- These children can be buddies to the blind person and encourage positive interactions.
- To keep the relationship balanced, the blind child might teach the children a skill or give help with homework.
6
Create inclusive activities. When doing group activities, make sure the blind child can participate. No child wants to feel isolated from an activity, especially a fun activity, so make some changes to include them. This might mean letting children work with a partner or making tasks easy to navigate without vision.^{[13]XResearch source}
- Play games that don’t require sight, or have the child modify the game so that they can play. For example, if playing hangman in the classroom, have the blind child keep track of the letters on their own.
7
Consider a social skills group. Because blind children tend to struggle in social skills, enroll them in a social skills group. Many schools offer these groups, or they can be found at a local mental health clinic. The benefit of a social skills group at school is that children can befriend one another in the group.^{[14]XResearch source}
- Social skills groups can teach children how to take turns speaking, how to begin a conversation, how to listen, and how to interact politely with others.
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