INTRODUCTION - The Psychological and Educational Assessment of Blind and Partially Sighted Children

Sep 29, 2026

Paper introducing the psychological and educational assessment of blind and partially sighted children, focusing on how educational psychologists use formal tests that are already familiar in their professional practice. It clarifies why observational and informal methods receive limited coverage, mainly due to space, while stressing their value for understanding processes and adaptive behaviours. It highlights key variables affecting performance, including visual status, residual vision use, and age of onset, and explains the need to actively seek and integrate such information into assessment.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages24

Reading Time1 h 0 min

AccessFree to download

INTRODUCTION

| HFGroup,LLC
H orV|J F|Slot Title
11 | Account Number/Name
150B D TI ELTIT | | --- | --- | | Introcluctm卜the
(nd Educational
Bind ancl actiall
Chld(en
BF431
.T554
1978
gied
Assessmen
p
Sychologcal
Spine | Ft
1JM1l
192 | | | Permanent Instructions: | | | One Time Only Instructions:
5Coe:0一4分 | | | 7 PROAL P | | | NB | AN INTRODUCTIO TO THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EDUCATIONAL ASSESSFEIT OF BLIND AND PARTIALLY SIGHTED CHILDREN RESEARCH CENTRE FOR THE EDUCATICN 0F THE VISUALLY HANDICAPPED FACULTY OF EDUCATION,IINTVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM, BF31 7551 M.J.TOBIN 13 T55 n ne M.C.MIGEL MEMORIAL LIBRARYAmerican Foundation for the Blind15 West 16th Street,New York,New York10011 // 5 金 1000 Published by the British Psychological Society,Division of Educational andChild Psychology,in Occasional Papers,Vol.II,No.l1,pp.9-17. # INTRODUCTION The main purpose of this paper is to inform educational psychologists ofthe range of tests that have been used for assessing visually handicappedchildren.It does not address itself to the,question of vhy we should assessthese children nor does it examine in close detail the wide variety ofinformal and observational techniques that might be used to extend orcomplement the information derived from formal testing.The answer to thefirst question is,in essence,no different from that which would be givenvis-a-vis the non-handicapped;practising psychologists are familiar withthe arguments and justifications that are deployed in such discussions,andit would be otiose to rehearse them here.The reasons for the scant treatmentof observational methods and informal procedures are to do with.space ratherthan with the belief that they can yield no insight into level of functioning;again,the practitioner can be assumed to be fully aware of what can be gainedin this way and of the importance of the kind of information about processesand adaptive behaviours that these other methods can provide.In addition,since most psychologists will have relatively few visually handicapped childrenreferred to them-there are probably no more than 3,500 visually handicappedchildren receiving and requiring special education in England and Wales一ithas seemed appropriate to direct attention in the first place mainly to thosetests which psychologists are already familiar with in the normal course oftheir work and which others have used,perhaps in a modified form,with thevisually impaired.This paper is intended therefore to build upon anexisting foundation of knowledge and expertise that can readily accommodateitself to the differences in style and functioning sometimes evidenced bychildren suffering from severe visual handicap. One of the major variables affecting performance is vision itself,andsince some 75%of children in schools for the blind are estimated to havevisual acuities of 2/60 Snellen and upwards,it is clear that knowledge aboutvisual status will be needed by the psychologist confronted by a childlabelled as visually impaired.This information will normally be availableon the form(B.D.8)completed by the ophthalmologist but for the nost severelyimpaired child it will be insufficient for determining whether or not he canuse sight for directing and monitoring his om performance on some of the taskspresented to him by the psychologist.Further discussion of this problem isprovided later in this paper.It is touched upon at this point merely toalert new members of assessment tean.s to the fact that most 'blind'childrencan see and that the child's use of his residual vision may in itself beindicative of level of intelligence,of the nature of the family's supportand attitude,and of the opportunities for learning already made available tohim.For some purposes,the examiner's own informal appraisal of the use ofsight-observation of the child's ability to locate a light source(windowor electric fi

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the paper?

To inform educational psychologists about the range of tests used to assess visually handicapped children, while clarifying what formal testing does and does not cover.

Why does the paper give limited attention to observational and informal methods?

The limited treatment is attributed to space constraints rather than to a belief that such methods provide no insight into a child’s level of functioning.

Which variables are highlighted as affecting assessment performance?

Vision itself and the age of onset of visual impairment are emphasized, since both can shape current functioning and how a child can use sight or residual vision.

Sep 29, 2026

Upload by Blue Pony