Perceiving with the eyes and with the hands

This article revolves around two experimental examples involving students with and without visual impairment in learning mathematics. The goal is to shed some light on the manner in which learning occurs and how concept formation is achieved within the students’ available sensorial modalities. The examples are analyzed through a theoretical cultural-historical approach to teaching and learning—the theory of knowledge objectification. A key feature of the theory, which is sketched in the first part of the article, is the idea of sensuous cognition. Within this theory, human cognition is not considered as a simple natural or biological feature of living beings. Human cognition is rather considered as a culturally and historically constituted sentient form of creatively responding, acting, feeling, imaging, ransforming, and making sense of the world. The classroom data illustrates the interplay of the various sensuous modalities in mathematical cognition in children with and without visual impairment and makes room for reenvisioning pedagogical actions in special mathematics education