Haptic-2D: A new haptic test battery assessing the tactual abilities of sighted and visually impaired children and adolescents with two-dimensional raised materials.
Haptic-2D is a quick, reliable way to check finger-touch skills in blind or low-vision kids aged 5-18.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Mazella et al. (2016) built a new test kit called Haptic-2D. It uses raised lines, shapes, and textures to check how well children feel with their fingers.
The team gave the kit to kids aged 5-18 who were blind, had low vision, or had normal sight. They wanted to know if the scores were steady and meaningful.
What they found
The battery gave steady results each time. It also lined up with other touch tests and told blind kids apart from sighted kids.
Eleven short subtests cover skills like tracking a raised line or telling two textures apart.
How this fits with other research
Patton et al. (2020) used wrist accelerometers to see real-world arm use in kids. Their tool measures movement, not touch, so the two studies do not clash. They simply look at different senses.
Li et al. (2015) found that kids with DCD are slow to feel passive arm motion. That paper shows a kinesthetic problem, while Haptic-2D shows tactile skill. Again, different senses, no true conflict.
Cavézian et al. (2010) built a vision-attention battery for preschoolers. Both teams created multi-item kits to catch sensory issues early, one for eyes and one for fingers.
Why it matters
If you serve learners who read Braille or use tactile graphics, you now have a quick, reliable way to check their touch skills. Give the full battery once, then re-test yearly to track growth or spot loss. Share the profile with OTs and TVIs so everyone targets the exact tactile gaps the child shows.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
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.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.10.012