Ferreira, V., & Albuquerque, C. P. (2017). Adaptation of a developmental test to accommodate young children with low vision . Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness , 111 (2), 97–111. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145482X1711100202

Also located on organizational (American Foundation for the Blind) webpage https://www.afb.org/publications/jvib

The researchers compared performance with and without accommodations for low vision. These included accommodations in materials (enhanced contours, enhanced contrast, magnification, use of a reading stand, and isolation of visual stimuli) and accommodations in administrative conditions (better lighting, tactile exploration before task, and replacing visual demonstration of tasks with participatory demonstrations of tasks). Accommodations in success criteria (counting performance with some assistance as successful) were also examined.

Twenty-five children with low vision who were between 28 and 76 months old participated. They were recruited from supports centers for families of children with low vision in Portugal.

The Griffiths Mental Development Scales - Extended Revised (GMDS-ER) was used to assess the participants twice. Performance on each of the subscales of the assessment was reported.

Of the 25 participants, 24 increased their score on the GMDS-ER when they were provided with accommodations. In addition to having significant improvement on the overall scale, the students showed significant improvement on three of the six subscales: locomotor, language, and performance (which assesses visual-spatial skills). The authors point out that these subscales had more accommodated items than did the other subscales. Limitations of the study were reported, and future research directions were suggested.