Test–retest reliability of BSP, a battery of tests for assessing spatial cognition in visually impaired children

Abstract

Blind individuals are particularly dependent on their hearing for defining space. It has been found that both children and adults with visual impairments can struggle with complex spatial tasks that require a metric representation of space. Nonetheless the variability of methods employed to assess spatial abilities in absence of vision is wide, especially in the case of visually impaired children. For this reason, it would be necessary to define a battery of tests that appropriately assess different aspects of spatial perception and to investigate its reliability in order to provide a standard assessment of spatial abilities not only in experimental but also in clinical settings. The aim of this study is to determine the test–retest reliability of a battery of six spatial tasks (BSP, Blind Spatial Perception) and provide the first gold standard for assessing spatial cognition deficits in visually impaired children. Thirty visually impaired children aged 6–17 participated in two identical sessions, at a distance of 10 weeks, in which they performed six spatial tasks: auditory bisection, auditory localization, auditory distance discrimination, auditory reaching, proprioceptive reaching, and general mobility. Test–retest reliability was assessed using the test-retest scatter plots, intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), and coefficient of variation (CV). The results showed good-to-excellent reliability for all six tests, with average ICC values ranging from 0.77 to 0.89 and average CV values ranging from 3.44% to 15.27%. In conclusion, the newly proposed battery (BSP) results as a reliable tool to identify spatial impairments in visually impaired children.

A framework to account for the effects of visual loss on human auditory abilities.

“…There is currently a lack of gold standard methods to assess the development of spatial cognition in individuals with visual losses (Finocchietti et al, 2019). To help address this, Finocchietti, et al (2019) developed the Blind Spatial Perception test (BSP) to enable spatial cognition deficits to be identified and measured for visually impaired children.…”

“…There is currently a lack of gold standard methods to assess the development of spatial cognition in individuals with visual losses (Finocchietti et al, 2019). To help address this, Finocchietti, et al (2019) developed the Blind Spatial Perception test (BSP) to enable spatial cognition deficits to be identified and measured for visually impaired children. The BSP involves a battery of tests assessing auditory localization, auditory bisection, auditory distance judgments, auditory reaching, proprioceptive reaching, and general mobility.…”

A Multidimensional, Multisensory and Comprehensive Rehabilitation Intervention to Improve Spatial Functioning in the Visually Impaired Child: A Community Case Study

“…Moreover, standardized primary (e.g., regarding visual functioning or general perceptual skills) and secondary (e.g., functional status, quality of life, social, and working inclusion) outcome measures are currently not available for the visually impaired population. To our knowledge, only one study ( Finocchietti et al, 2019 ) proposed a first possible goal standard test to evaluate spatial impairment in visually deprived children. In this sense, the use of technological devices could be extremely helpful for visually impaired children in order to reach rehabilitation goals, especially in the field of mobility and autonomy, as it has been shown in some recent works ( Cappagli et al, 2017b , 2019 ).…”

Standardized and Experimental Tools to Assess Spatial Cognition in Visually Impaired Children: A Mini-Review

“…To our knowledge, only one study validated a battery of experimental spatial tests (BSP, Blind Spatial Perception), providing the first gold standard for assessing spatial cognition deficits in visually impaired children (Finocchietti et al, 2019). A group of thirty children with visual impairments aged 6-17 years old were tested on the BSP comprising the following six spatial tasks: auditory bisection (listen to three sounds and report whether the second sound was closer in space to the first or to the last one presented), auditory localization (listen to one sound and point toward its spatial location), auditory distance discrimination (listen to three sounds and report whether the first or the second presented is closer to their body), auditory reaching (listen to one sound and reach it in space), proprioceptive reaching (repeat a memorized arm movement toward a specific spatial position), and general mobility (walk straight for three meters and come back at their own pace).…”

“…The reason could be that most of the conventional spatial tests for typical children are visual and cannot be easily adapted to other modalities (such as hearing or touch) for technical reasons. On the contrary, many research paradigms have been developed to assess spatial cognition in children with none or partial vision, but none of them has been formally validated, except for a single study, to our knowledge, that developed and validated an experimental battery of spatial tests, providing the first gold standard for assessing spatial cognition deficits in visually impaired children (Finocchietti et al, 2019). This study evaluated the reliability of a test battery comprising six spatial tests assessing different spatial competencies (e.g., the ability to estimate the topographical representation of single or multiple sound sources) on a group of thirty aged 6-17 visually impaired children and showed good-to-excellent reliability for all six tests.…”