Visibility Vol 7 Issue 2, 2013

In the educational assessment there are many functions where changes in the quality of vision may restrict, or even prevent, normal performance in one or several activities and tasks during a school day. Therefore, we need to observe all vision-related functions in communication (oneto-one and in groups), orientation in space (map-based, route-based and abstract space), activities of daily living (ADL) and demanding sustained near tasks like reading and writing. During each activity we should ask ourselves 1) “WHAT” does the child see, 2) “HOW” does the child use vision during each particular activity and 3) we should gather information to understand “WHY” the child uses his/her special strategies. Because changes in ocular motor functions and in the basic visual sensory functions (visual and grating acuity, contrast sensitivity, color vision, visual field, visual adaptation and motion perception) can mimic higher cortical visual disorders, we need to gather information on these basic motor and sensory functions to reveal what kind of visual information enters early visual processing, then assess functions in early visual processing, and finally assess recognition functions (inferior temporal lobe functions), vision for doing parietal lobe functions and mirror neuron functions. For remembering all observations and measurements, schools use check lists like the Profile of Visual Functioning for Educational Assessment.