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Description: How does developmental experience, as opposed to intrinsic physiology, shape cortical function? Naturalistic stimuli were used to elicit neural synchrony in individuals blind from birth (n=18) and those who grew up with sight (n=18). Blind and blindfolded sighted participants passively listened to three audio-movie clips, an auditory narrative, a sentence shuffled version of the narrative (maintaining language but lacking a plotline), and a version of the narrative backwards (lacking both language and plot). For both groups, early auditory cortices were synchronized to a similar degree across stimulus types, while higher-cognitive temporo-parietal and prefrontal areas were more synchronized by meaningful, temporally extended stimuli (i.e., audio-movies and narrative). “Visual” cortices were more synchronized across blind than sighted individuals, but only for audio-movies and narrative. In the blind group, “visual” cortex synchrony was low for backwards speech and intermediate for sentence shuffle. Meaningful auditory stimuli synchronize “visual” cortices of people born blind.