A Blind Child Goes to the Hospital

Much has been written in recent years to demonstrate conclusively the traumatic effects of hospitalization, even for relatively brief periods, on the development of the very young child. It has become clear that one of the major factors in this is the separation the small child has to suffer from his objects, mainly from his mother. When mother and child can be together in the hospital, the experience has a completely different effect on the psychic development of the child. Surgical interventions and treatment, even when prolonged and painful, do not always in themselves produce traumatic and permanently damaging effects, provided that certain necessary arrangements are made.

If the importance of the presence of the mother has been so clearly demonstrated in the case of the young sighted child, how will it be in the case of a blind child? One would expect that without the aid of vision to help the child master the new unfamiliar hospital surroundings, with its unfamiliar noises, etc., the anxieties, loneliness, and loss would be much greater and the aftereffects more profound and lasting. Sighted children often find comfort at night