COMPARATIVE ANALYSISOFTACTILESENSITIVITY BETWEEN BLIND,DEAFAND UNIMPAIREDPEOPLE

This paperpresents themethodological procedures and theresults ofatactile sensitivity analysis tovibrotactile stimuli. The procedure consists intheattempt ofavisual, hearing impaired person aswellasanunimpaired one,initially trained, toidentify three vibrotactile standard stimuli (target frequency from17.8, 31.6and56.2Hz)having asstarting point thesending ofaninitial stimulus (initialfrequency). Theresults wereobtained through the analyses between therightness meanwhile identifying thetarget frequency, among1)visually andhearing impaired people aswell asunimpaired ones; 2)visually andhearing impaired menand womenandunimpaired ones; 3)visually andhearing impaired children, teenagers andadults aswell asunimpaired ones; and4) people withcongenital andacquired blindness ordeafness. A comparative analysis wasdonebetween thetactile sensitivity ofthe forefinger andthethumb, middle, ring andlittle fingers, aswell asa comparison between thesensitivities inthetarget frequencies inthe three groups (blind, deafandunimpaired people). Theresults assessment obtained intheexperiment wasbased onthet-student statistical methodfor paired andindependent samples andANOVA with aclassification criterion.