[Psychological measurement of tactile-kinesthetic perception in early childhood]

The perception theory of Affolter (1987), the theory of sensory integration of Ayres (1979, 1984) as well as the development theory of Piaget (1973) consider sensorimotor experiences as a basis for the child's cognitive development. Tactile-kinesthetic perception has hereby a central position. In the German-speaking psychology, no standardized tests exist to measure the developmental age of tactile-kinesthetic perception in early childhood. The subtests of neuropsychological batteries have not been primarily constructed for young children, therefore they may not portray the age dependence of tactile-kinesthetic perception exactly. That is why we have collected a pool of items, empirically based descriptors of tactile-kinesthetic behavior, to test this perceptual modality. Then we proved it in a series of pretests. The resulting preliminary developmental test contains 7 functions: Localization of touch, pressure sensibility, two-point-discrimination, finger identification, object stereognosis, stereognosis of object properties, and graphesthesia. It was administered to 111 children aged from 3;2 to 6;5 years in kindergarten. Data of the item analysis demonstrated that many items proved to be to easy. Nevertheless, the instrument is useful and measures reliably. The deficits of the experimental test version will now be corrected by a revision. We will start a detailed analysis again using the revised test.