ABSTRACT
We investigate the participation of a ten-year-old congenitally blind girl during a music lesson in a school for the visually impaired. The student exhibits behaviours – often labelled “blindisms” – common among many blind children: she rocks and sometimes jumps up, flailing her arms. This kind of motor-behaviour is also common among autistic children and is known as “stimming”. Why many blind children engage in periodic motor-behaviours is subject to debate. We compare the movement styles of four children and describe the temporal structure of our main subject’s movements. Although at first glance she appears to be ensconced in a cocoon spun by her own movements, her behaviours are responsive to the social environment, and other interactional participants attune their own speech and movements to her rhythm. Rather than focusing on the individual child and assuming that her behaviour is socially disruptive, it is important to investigate how the interacting system accommodates and uses this rhythmic behaviour.
