Utility of the Uzgiris and Hunt seales of sensorimotor development with severely and profoundly retarded children.

The reliability and validity of the Uzgiris and Hunt (1975) scales of sensorimotor development were examined with severely and profoundly retarded children. The subjects were 63 severely or profoundly retarded children between 42 and 126 months of age. Thirty of the subjects were living in residential facilities, and 33 were living at home and attending day schools. All of the subjects were assessed on all six scales of the Uzgiris and Hunt instrument. Interexaminer and test-retest reliabilities were computed. Scalogram analyses were also computed for all but the Schemes scale. The findings were that the scales were reliable and, as theorized by Piaget, ordinal with the present sample. These findings were interpreted as indicating that these scales could be used reliably and validly with severely and profoundly retarded children. This was discussed in terms of the present and potential uses of these scales.