Assessment and instruction of hands-on problem-solving and object interaction skills in children who are deafblind

The object interaction skills that children use to master the physical environment shed light on their cognitive and motor abilities. For children who are non vernal and who have severe disabilities, object interactions may provide especially revealing evidence of their cognitive development,. This article describes the development in the United States of assessment instruments designed to evaluate the object interaction and problem-solving or children who are deafbiind. The instruments are designed to assess the development of simple object manipulation, the functional use of objects and ways to gain access to desired objects. They allow the evaluation of child skills, the development of instructional objectives and the measurement of developing mastery of the physical environment. Two studies. involved in the development of t6~e new instruments are describe a large-scale field test through which various properties of the assessments were examined and the skills of a representative or the target population were revealed; and an implementation study involving the use of the instruments to set instructional goals and measure the educational progress of students in local state-funded classroom.