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

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SIGNIFICANCE Technological advancements have made distributing reading materials in audio formats more common. Investigating how presentation mode impacts comprehension among sighted and blind individuals will inform the distribution of information to enhance comprehension. PURPOSE The aims were (1) to investigate the hypothesis that reading comprehension is enhanced by increased physical engagement and cognitive effort through text or braille and (2) to explore how assistive technology impacts comprehension for blind individuals. METHODS In a within-subjects design, 31 sighted and 34 blind participants read and listened to scientific passages and verbally answered free-response questions about what they read and heard. For sighted participants, passages were presented in text and human voice actor recordings. For blind participants, passages were presented with hard-copy braille, a refreshable braille display, voice actor recordings, and a screen reader. RESULTS Comprehension scores were analyzed using mixed-effects regression and pairwise comparisons on the estimated marginal means. In study 1, the comprehension difference between text or hard-copy braille and the voice actor formats was assessed to address the first aim. Sighted participants had better comprehension with text (mean, 74.8%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 70.5 to 79.1%) than with a voice actor (mean, 69.7%; 95% CI, 65.4 to 74.0%; P = .02), and blind participants had superior comprehension with hard-copy braille (mean, 70.4%; 95% CI, 63.3 to 77.5%) than with a voice actor (mean, 61.9%; 95% CI, 54.7 to 69.0%; P = .03). In study 2, the comprehension differences among blind participants between the four formats were investigated to address the second aim. Comprehension was better with hard-copy braille (mean, 70.6%; 95% CI, 63.4 to 77.7%) than with a screen reader (mean, 60.7%; 95% CI, 53.5 to 67.9%; P = .02) and better with a braille display (mean, 69.7%; 95% CI, 62.5 to 76.9%) than with a screen reader ( P = .04). CONCLUSIONS Study 1 supports the hypothesis that more physically engaging tasks enhance comprehension, and study 2 suggests that listening to scientific materials using a synthesized voice may reduce comprehension ability compared with hard-copy braille and braille displays.

Intelligence (IQ) tests are used to determine a child's intellectual abilities relative to his or her age group. Results are used to diagnose learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and giftedness; and to inform psychoeducational interventions and student education plans. The majority of tasks on intelligence tests require vision, such as visual pattern recognition. Therefore, psychologists typically use verbal sections, especially vocabulary tests, to assess students who have visual impairments.In a recent study (Morash & McKerracher, 2016), we investigated whether a common vocabulary test produced scores from children with visual impairments that were reliable. We found that reliability was not high enough to be used for high-stakes decisions, such as determining diagnoses or educational programming. Therefore, we do not recommend common verbal tests developed for sighted children be used with children who have visual impairments. Practitioners need to be wary and watchful of any diagnoses based on inappropriate intelligence measures.

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