structured and more naturalistic learning situations. The TWMS is based on these theoretical and clinical assessment approaches.
8.4 The Tactile Working Memory Scale (TWMS) The main purpose of the TWMS assessment is to promote a high level of working memory potentials in a person with CDB through accommodation of the environment (environmental interaction/social interaction), for instance by optimizing the physical and social environment of the person and by mediat ing effective bodily-tactile working memory strategies within the assessment. Accordingly, a learner will use different learning strategies such as perceptual, cognitive and/or social cognitive strategies in order to gather information, attend, problem solve, remember, or socially interact more successfully. For further details regarding the different bodily-tactile learning strategies, see the professional manual of the Tactile Working Memory Scale (Nicholas, Johannes sen & van Nunen, 2019). Furthermore, the assessment can help us identify the person’s level of under standing of these strategies as well as their transferral value to other activi ties or tasks of increased levels of complexity or novelty and thereby provide insights into the emerging working memory capabilities of the person with CDB. To promote construct validity, the domains, subscales and items of tactile working memory are identified and conceptualized based on theory, clinical practice and the research literature. Research suggests that the concept of working memory not only refers to short-term storage of information, but also to attention and executive control, and is reciprocally linked to long term memory (Miyake & Shah, 1999). Further more, it involves a great deal of social information processing and engages social working memory (Meyer, Taylor, & Lieberman, 2015). The TWMS has been formulated in three steps: the first step was a literature review focusing on studies addressing tactile information processing (i.e., (Gal lace & Spence, 2009; Song & Francis, 2013; Katus, Müller, & Eimer, 2015). The second step was to take into account theoretical models of working memory (i.e., (Baddeley & Hitch, 1975; Miyake, et al., 2000; Baddeley, 2003; Cowan, 2008)) and a tactile spatial model of working memory (Cohen, Scherzer, Viau, Voss, & Lepore, 2011). This tactile spatial model of working memory especial ly considers the crucial role of tactile experience in shaping working memory. During the second step, particular emphasis was given to two specific working memory models: the model as suggested by Daryl Fougnie, in which working memory is the ability to retain information in an accessible state and includes the distinct processes of encoding, maintenance and manipulation of informa tion (Fougnie, 2008); and the model of social working memory proposed by 125