The paper reviews cognitive development during the sensorimotor period (approximately the first two years of life) and considers approaches to assessing multihandicapped, deaf-blind, or severely/profoundly retarded students functioning at this level. Evaluation and training of basic sensorimotor schemes (visual fixation and tracking, sucking, and grasp reflexes) are described, as are approaches to teaching the child to coordinate the basic schemes. The bulk of the manual is composed of detailed suggestions for administering the Sensorimotor Cognitive Assessment Scale, which is based on works of I. Uzgiris and J. Hunt. Each subscale is considered separately with suggestions of adaptations for sensory and motor impairments and examples of curriculum at lower levels. The seven subscales are: visual pursuit, localization, and the permanence of objects; means for obtaining desired environmental events; development of operational causality; construction of object relations in space; development of vocal imitation; development of motor (gestural) imitation; and development of schemes for relating to objects. Appended material includes examples of recordkeeping using the assessment procedure. (CL)