Route descriptions by visually impaired and sighted children from memory and from maps

The study reported here investigated the quality and content of visually impaired and sighted children's descriptions of two routes around their schools from memory and by using a map (print or tactile). It found that the descriptions from maps were generally poorer than those from memory, the descriptions of the visually impaired children contained more information than and were qualitatively different from those of the sighted children, and the descriptions of the younger visually impaired children were less well specified than those of the older visually impaired children and the sighted children.