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The purpose of this investigation was to examine the utility of the Vineland Scales-Expanded Form for an assessment of disabilities in individuals with Mental Retardation (MR) and a sensorimotor disorder. The Vineland score profiles of individuals with MR and a sensorimotor disorder were compared with those of matched peers with MR but without the associated disorder. The disorder group exhibited lower scores only in the adaptive areas relating to the sensorimotor disorder. The Vineland Scales can therefore evaluate the adaptive area deficits of individuals with MR and a sensorimotor disorder. As the Vineland Scales measure everyday living skills, they can be used for an assessment of sensorimotor disabilities. The utility of disability assessment in individuals with MR is discussed.

School inclusion of students with disabilities in ordinary classes is a multidimensional phenomena that may be evaluated with respect to different dimensions: social acceptance, social interactions, and supports toward the student with disabilities, teachers’ and parents’ attitudes toward inclusion, and students’ mental representations of the peer with disabilities. The purpose of the present review is to present several methods for evaluating school inclusion: sociometric techniques, systematic observation, questionnaires, and student drawings. Additionally, an integrated use of these methods is presented to plan interventions to facilitate school integration.

Very often the diagnostic process provides only a descriptive label of the disorder. A useful diagnosis must reach the precise description and the functional interpretation of the deficits shown by a given individual. To this aim, four separate but intertwined steps are required: (1) clinical interview to collect personal and clinical anamnesis and to figure out the sociocultural context; (2) screening tests to describe the general cognitive picture and to detect the impaired functions; (3) standardized batteries to categorize the specific cognitive disorders according to the accredited taxonomies; (4) ad hoc investigation to identify the impaired cognitive components in the individual patient according to a sound theoretical model of the functional architecture of the cognitive processes. Only doing in this way, personalized educational and rehabilitative interventions may be planned and specific goals can be achieved.

Structural Equating Modeling (SEM) is a formal model for representing dependency relations between variables of psychological events and may be used for verifying the structural organization of a theoretical model. “Rules of thumb” for the use of SEM are presented regarding each step of its application: specification of the structural model, measurement of the psychological event, and estimation of the adequacy of the model in representing the event. The investigation of the factorial structure of Greenspan's model of personal competence is presented as an example of SEM application with participants with disabilities.

Performances in psychological tests are frequently influenced by the socio-cultural level (SCL). Therefore, valid strategies to assess SCL must be used. Dimensions of SCL are presented (socio-economic status, cultural capital, and social capital) and available strategies for their assessment are described. Problems in the SCL evaluation and their effects in research and clinical fields are discussed, particularly in the case of children with learning and behavioral disabilities.

The sense of community in online courses may contribute to the success and the satisfaction of all the students and the integration of the students with disabilities. Therefore, a valid scale to assess sense of community must be used. For this purpose, a questionnaire for the evaluation of all the dimensions of the MacMillan and Chavis (1986) sense of community model, the main theoretical reference in the field, is being developed for use with students of university online courses. The usefulness of such a questionnaire for the planning of interventions to promote the feeling of being a member of a group in online courses is discussed.