DEVELOPING PRESCHOOL BLIND CHILDREN'S MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES THROUGH A PROGRAM BASED ON PLAYING

Developing the skills and competencies of children with special educational needs (SEN) is one of the major issues in education. Based on the benefits of remedial and supportive educational programs that have been evidenced by research, it has been argued that there is a need for more progressive contexts to improve different social, mental and psychological capacities of children with SEN.
The purpose of this study was to develop blind children's multiple intelligences; depending on Gardner's theory to enhance their artistic, kinetic and logical intelligences. Specifically, the study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of a playing program to develop some multiple intelligences for preschool blind children and their sighted peers in Egypt.
Sixty Egyptian children participated in this study (30 sighted – 30 blind) divided into two experimental and two control groups, each of which consists of 15 children. The following instruments were used:
1- Multiple Intelligence Scale for Preschool Children (prepared by the researcher).
2- Preschool Children Program based on play activities (prepared by the researcher).
3- Socioeconomic Level of Family Scale (Abdel-Aziz Alshakhs, 2006).
4- Verbal Ability of Bienet Intelligence Scale (Translated into Arabic by Louis Milikah, 1998).

Data was statistically analyzed and the results proved that the playing program was effective in developing some dimensions of multiple intelligences of the blind and sighted children. There were statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the two experimental groups (normal children- sighted) at both pre and post test in favor of the post test. The paper argued that the activities : role playing, going zoo, creativity, dancing, drama, hand-on, puzzles, telling stories, problem solving, modeling , reinforcement of the program are highly effective in developing the different dimensions of intelligence of both the sighted children and the blind children. The results indicate that developing the skills of all children at early stages is very important for future development. Additionally, this study provided important feedback for improving future planning and implementation of remedial and supportive education programs in Egypt. Further suggestions for developing current educational practices in pre-schools in Egypt and elsewhere are suggested.