Haptic-2D: A new haptic test battery assessing the tactual abilities of sighted and visually impaired children and adolescents with two-dimensional raised materials

To fill an important gap in the psychometric assessment of children and adolescents with impaired vision, we designed a new battery of haptic tests, called Haptic-2D, for visually impaired and sighted individuals aged five to 18 years. Unlike existing batteries, ours uses only two-dimensional raised materials that participants explore using active touch. It is composed of 11 haptic tests, measuring scanning skills, tactile discrimination skills, spatial comprehension skills, short-term tactile memory, and comprehension of tactile pictures. We administered this battery to 138 participants, half of whom were sighted (n = 69), and half visually impaired (blind, n = 16; low vision, n = 53). Results indicated a significant main effect of age on haptic scores, but no main effect of vision or Age × Vision interaction effect. Reliability of test items was satisfactory (Cronbach's alpha, α = 0.51-0.84). Convergent validity was good, as shown by a significant correlation (age partialled out) between total haptic scores and scores on the B101 test (rp = 0.51, n = 47). Discriminant validity was also satisfactory, as attested by a lower but still significant partial correlation between total haptic scores and the raw score on the verbal WISC (rp = 0.43, n = 62). Finally, test-retest reliability was good (rs = 0.93, n = 12; interval of one to two months). This new psychometric tool should prove useful to practitioners working with young people with impaired vision.