title: Low reliability of sighted-normed verbal assessment scores when administered to children with visual impairments.
abstract: The most common and advocated assessment approach when a child cannot access visual materials is to use the verbal subscales of a test the psychologist already has and is familiar with. However, previous research indicates that children with visual impairments experience atypical verbal development. This raises the question of whether verbal subscale scores retain their reliability and interpretation validity when given to children with visual impairments. To answer this question, we administered a vocabulary subscale from a common intelligence test along with several nonverbal subscales to 15 early-blind adolescents (onset of ≤2 years). Reliability of only the vocabulary test scores was insufficient for high-stakes testing. This finding points to the broader issue of difficulties in assessing populations of exceptional children who experience atypical development trajectories, possibly making their assessment with common tests inappropriate. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.
authors.forename: Valerie S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Morash
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Vancouver Island University.
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McKerracher
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001766:Blindness / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000523:psychology