Implementa- tion research is needed to understand best practices in working with consultants and interpreters through the pre-assessment and assessment planning, conducting the assessment, analyzing and interpreting the results, reporting the results in written and oral formats , and determining eligibility and monitoring. Finally, families should play critical roles in the assessment process. Under federal law, parents have the right to be included in the decision-making process regarding the educational place- ment of their child.
Although family members should not administer formal assessments, they are encouraged to be involved in selecting, conducting, and provid- ing information to contextualize results. The process and results of assessment should be explained to parents in a way that is meaningful and easily understandable. This diverse population of young children presents numer- ous challenges related to the validity of assessments, not only because they are young, but also because of their developmental or disability-related needs.
The following pages address why young children with special needs are being assessed, the princi- ples that should guide assessment, and some of the unique issues raised by conducting assessments for this population.
Key to understanding the assessment issues in this area is understanding who makes up this population. Many children with special needs receiving services do so through programs supported under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the primary law that provides funding and policy guidance for the education of children with disabilities.
The IDEA is basically a grants program of federal funds going to states to serve students with special needs on the condition that the education provided for them is appropriate National Research Council, In , nearly 1 million children with special needs under age 5 received services through programs governed by the IDEA.
Children under age 5 with special needs are served under two different sections of IDEA. Children from birth to age 3 receive services under Part C, Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities, whereas children ages 3 through 5 are served under Part B, which addresses special education and related services for children and youth ages 3 through Infants and toddlers receive services for a variety of develop- mental problems, with communication problems being the most frequent.
A total of 64 percent of children served under age 3 have some kind of developmental delay. Nearly one in five 19 percent have some kind of a prenatal or perinatal abnormality, and 18 percent have motor problems.
Three-fourths of the children iden- tified between ages 2 and 3 receive services for a communication problem. Smaller percentages have problems with movement Assessment Purposes Young children with special needs are extremely diverse in the nature and extent of their competencies and needs, and this diver- sity has significant implications for assessment. Screening Screening, the process of identifying children who may need additional assessment, is the type of assessment that first suggests the presence of a possible developmental or physical problem, such as a mild communication delay or a hearing problem.
A screening assessment may be focused on multiple areas of development, such as language, cognition, and socioemotional development, or specific body functions, such as vision or hearing. Some children, such as those with severe motor problems, would be unlikely to participate in a general developmental screening assessment intended to identify children at risk for poor development because the presence of a delay or disability is already apparent or docu- mented from birth.
A number of assessment measures are available with acceptable levels of sensitivity and specificity, indicating that, if conducted well with well-chosen measures, screening can be an accurate process Meisels and Atkins-Burnett, Diagnosis and Eligibility Determination Most young children with special needs participate in an assessment for diagnostic purposes and to establish their eligi- bility for early intervention or early childhood special education.
The IDEA requires that children referred for early intervention services be assessed in five areas: physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development, and adaptive development. The IDEA requires that children ages 3 and older be assessed in the area of suspected disability, although recommended prac- tice is for a comprehensive assessment in all areas Neisworth and Bagnato, Children under 36 months of age are eligible for early intervention services under the IDEA if they have either a developmental delay or a condition likely to result in a delay if services are not provided e.
The IDEA requires that each state set its own criteria for determination of developmental delay. States also have the option to serve children under the IDEA who do not have an established condition but are at risk of developing a developmental delay.
The IDEA eligibility criteria for 3- through 5-year-olds are quite different from those for infants and toddlers, meaning that a child can be eligible for services in one age group and not the other.
These are the same eligibility criteria that apply to children ages 5 through 21 with the exception of developmental delay, which can be used only with children through age 9. An alternative approach for eligibility determination, response to intervention RTI , is being used with school-age children and has potential for younger children.
If the amount of additional service deemed necessary for the child to show progress is beyond the scope of the regular program, then the child could be considered in need of special education VanDerHayden and Snyder, Assessment is central to implementation of a multitiered model, but, unlike current approaches to eligibility, the access to special services does not hinge on the outcome of assessment at a single point in time.
For children and families, this means that additional assess- ments need to be conducted after the diagnostic evaluation sub- stantiates that the child meets the eligibility criteria for services.
Criterion-referenced or curriculum-based measures are generally used as part of the assessment process to identify objectives for the child and identify appropriate instructional or intervention strategies to achieve these objectives Bagnato, ; Losardo and Notari-Syverson, The first refers to tracking their progress through a set of objectives using any criterion or curriculum-based tool administered at regular intervals Pretti-Frontczak et al.
The second involves the use of tools derived from a general outcomes model Deno, , in which key skills linked to general outcomes are assessed repeatedly over time, allowing for depiction of growth toward identified outcomes Carta et al. The assessment process helps the teacher, interventionist, or therapist know whether they should continue to address this outcome or set of outcomes with the set of strategies being used or should identify higher level outcomes or new strategies Pretti-Frontczak et al.
Note that for children making good progress, progress monitoring identifies the need for the teacher to address high-level outcomes.
For children not making prog- ress, progress monitoring may indicate the need for alternative. The use of ongoing assessment for planning and progress monitoring, however, is considered one of the indicators of a quality program for all young children, including children with disabilities Division for Early Childhood, ; National Association for the Education of Young Children and National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education, Large-Scale Assessment: Research, Evaluation, and Accountability Studies have examined multiple aspects of the development of young children with disabilities and the factors influencing their development, such as parent interaction or the effective- ness of a particular intervention strategy or curriculum model.
Similarly, many studies have examined issues of intervention or program effectiveness for young children with special needs by looking at developmental gains on assessment measures McLean and Cripe, ; Spiker and Hopmann, The diversity of children with special needs, especially with regard to some who have limited response capabilities and lower overall functioning, is highly problematic when it comes to large- scale evaluations designed to look at the entire population of young children for research, evaluation, or accountability pur- poses.
And the assessment of young children with special needs to address state or federal accountability requirements is a relatively recent phenomenon, either for programs specifically for children with special needs or for general early childhood programs in which they are served, such as Head Start or state-operated pre- schools Division for Early Childhood, ; Harbin, Rous, and McLean, ; Hebbeler, Barton, and Mallik, Beginning in , the U.
Department of Education is requiring that all states provide data on progress made by young children during their time in IDEA-governed programs. States are employing a vari- ety of approaches to obtain these data, including using a single assessment statewide, several online assessments, a summary process based on team decision making, and multiple sources of information that include formal assessment tools.
Much attention in the last 20 years has focused on making sure that children in special education are included in state K accountability efforts, because previously they were not. The amendments to the IDEA require that children with disabilities be included in state and district assessment programs and pro- vided with appropriate accommodations.
The law also requires that states report their scores on these assessments in the same detail and with the same frequency as the scores of other children Ysseldyke et al.
Principles of Assessment Several aspects of the assessment of young children with dis- abilities for eligibility and program planning are codified in the IDEA as described above and may be addressed in state laws and regulations as well.
In addition, several organizations, including. The principles in these documents apply to all children, including those with special needs. Indeed, some of the principles apply to using assessment to identify children in need of special services.
The Division for Early Childhood DEC of the Council for Exceptional Children has developed a set of recommended practices specifically addressing the assessment of young children with special needs Neisworth and Bagnato, A common theme across the professional organizations and echoed by many in the field is the importance of using multiple sources of information and never making a decision about a child based on a single assessment Greenspan and Meisels, ; McCune et al.
This recommendation is especially important for children with special needs, whose performance and behavior across settings and situations can be even more vari- able than those of typically developing children. A key principle of good assessment is that families of children with special needs should be included in the assessment process Boone and Crais, ; Division for Early Childhood, ; Meisels and Atkins-Burnett, ; Meisels and Provence, ; Neisworth and Bagnato, Thinking of families as equal and contributing partners in the assessment has numerous implica- tions for how an assessment process is to be carried out.
Another principle applicable to all children but of special relevance to children with special needs is the importance of providing them with multiple opportunities to demonstrate their competencies. Qualities of good early childhood assessment, identified by Neisworth and Bagnato , are that it is useful for its chosen purpose; acceptable to both families and professionals; authentic in that the circumstances and people involved in the assessment are familiar to the child; based on collaboration between families and professionals; reflects convergence of multiple sources of information; accommodates individual differences; sensitive to even small increments of change; and based on tools that have been validated for use with the population of children for whom the assessment is being used.
Five practices addressing the assess- ment of children with special needs and recommended by the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Chil- dren reflect these qualities Neisworth and Bagnato, : 1. Professionals and families collaborate in planning and implementing assessment. Assessment is individualized and appropriate for the child and family. Assessment provides useful information for intervention. Professionals share information in respectful and useful ways.
Professionals meet legal and procedural requirements and meet recommended practices guidelines. Assessment Challenges Children with special needs are assessed in large numbers and by a varied array of practitioners, yet little information about actual assessment practices is available.
It would be useful to know what tools are being used, how child behaviors are being judged, how eligibility decisions are being reached, to what extent children with special needs are included in accountability assessments, and so on. The use of norm-referenced standard- ized assessments for children with special needs creates particu- lar challenges.
Standardized assessments require that items be administered the same way to all children, requiring them to show competence on demand, possibly in an unfamiliar setting and at the request of a stranger. A discus- sion of some of these problems follows.
One of the problems is based on the extent and number of response demands that the testing situation makes on the child. Standardized testing often requires verbal fluency, expressive communication, fully functioning sensory systems, as well as comprehension of the assessment cues including the verbal and visual cues being given by the examiners Bagnato, ; Division for Early Childhood, ; Meisels and Atkins-Burnett, Many young children with special needs are not capable of com- plying with all of the demands of the testing situation.
Children could not respond as they were expected to because of lack of language, poor motor skills, poor social skills, and lack of attention and other self-control behaviors Bagnato and Neisworth, One of the basic principles of good assessments is that an assessment must have demonstrated validity for the purposes for which it is used American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and National Council on Measurement in Education, Norm-referenced measures are often used with young children to determine eligibility for IDEA services.
As explained previously, state definitions for eligibility for early intervention services employ criteria e. In , a landmark paper examined the test manuals of 27 aptitude and achievement tests and found that publishers provided very little information on the use of the test with children with disabilities Fuchs et al. They concluded that no research has been conducted to support the use of conventional tests for early intervention eligibility.
Only three studies have been conducted to support the use of authentic assessment methods and clinical judgment methods for this purpose. Bailey suggests that the factor structure used to develop age levels for developmental assessments may not be appropriate for children with develop- mental delays.
He cites a study that found only three factors for children with severe developmental disabilities rather than the five factors reported in the manual Snyder et al.
Weak or imprecise measurement during eligibility determinations may lead to denial of access to services. One possible way to mitigate some of the limitations of using norm-referenced assessments for eligibility determinations is. Dunst and Hanby compared the percentage of children served in the 28 states and the District of Columbia that allow the use of informed clinical opinion with those that do not and found no differences in the percentage of children served, suggesting that professionals in the states that allow for informed clinical opinion may not take advantage of this eligibility deter- mination practice.
Another practice problem associated with standardized norm-referenced assessments is that they do not provide infor- mation that is relevant for program planning because the items are chosen for their ability to discriminate among children.
In other words, ideal items on norm-referenced tests are passed by half the children and failed by half the children in the norming group. Because norm-referenced tests lack treatment or instruc- tional validity Bailey, ; Botts, Losard, and Notari-Syverson, ; Neisworth and Bagnato, , service providers need to give additional assessments to develop intervention plans.
One study, which represents a possible new direction for eligibility assessment, examined the use of a curriculum-based measure for eligibility as an alternative to norm-referenced assessment Macy, Bricker, and Squires, It found support for the potential of alternative forms of assessment for making eligibility decisions. All of the problems with using norm-referenced assessment notwithstanding, at least professionals administering traditional tools to young children for diagnostic purposes have the option to select a particular instrument on the basis of the characteristics of the individual child to be tested and should be augmenting that information with information from other sources.
The exam- iner also can modify the assessment procedures to accommodate fatigue or lack of interest. Although such changes in administra- tion violate the standard administration procedures, they may be the only way to get usable information from the assessment Bagnato and Neisworth, For large data collec- tions encompassing the entire range of young children with disabilities, the challenges related to instrument selection and administration are substantial, as are the challenges of recruiting assessment administrators and interpreters with the full range of relevant knowledge and experience.
Designers of large-scale data collections may respond to the assessment challenges posed by the diversity of children with spe- cial needs by excluding them from either the entire study sample or from one or more of the assessments. Another approach is to include only those children with special needs deemed capable of participating in the general assessments and either exclude or administer an alternate assessment to those who cannot take part in the regular assessment.
Given that the data in large-scale studies will be aggregated across children and possibly disaggregated by subgroups, it is imperative that accurate conclusions be drawn about the per- formance of children with special needs. Currently, an assessment system developed by the state of California contains the only assessment tools that have been developed explicitly for large-scale data collection with young.
In addition to these general problems, we describe below sev- eral challenges of special relevance to the assessment of children with disabilities. Construct-Irrelevant Skills and the Interrelatedness of Developmental Domains For a young child to demonstrate competency on even a single item on an assessment requires a combination of skills, yet some of them may not be relevant to the construct being assessed.
To the extent that items on an assessment require skills other than the construct being assessed e. Some examples of this in assessments of young children with special needs are obvious. A child who cannot hear or who has no use of her arms will not be able to point to a picture of a cat when asked. The item requires hearing and pointing as well as knowledge of a cat, even though these are not the skills being tested.
The child who cannot point will fail the item, regardless of what he or she knows about cats. Other occurrences of construct-irrelevant variance may not be so obvious. Even though test developers attempt to address this by keeping instructions simple, all young children are imperfect language processors because they are still learn- ing language. Many young children with special needs have impairments related to communication, meaning their capacity to process language is even less than the restricted capacity of a typical peer.
Unlike deafness, blindness, or a motor impairment, language processing problems may present no visible signs of impact on the assessment process. Construct-irrelevant variance is a major problem for the assessment of young children because many assessments are organized and scored around domains of development.
They do not exist independently in the child, and therefore measure- ment tools that assume independence of domains will have some degree of construct-irrelevant variance due to overlap across domains.
Ironically, the impact of construct-irrelevant skills is greater for children with disabilities, because their development across domains may be less connected than it is for typically developing children. For example, completing a two-piece puzzle requires both cognitive and motor skills, skills that develop in tandem in typically developing children.
The puzzle is challeng- ing for the same-age child with limited motor skills, even though that child may have a very solid understanding of how the pieces fit together.
Functional Outcomes and Domain-Based Assessments For many years the emphasis in working with young chil- dren with special needs has been on identifying and improving functional, rather than domain-based, outcomes. The concept of an appropriate outcome of intervention for a young child with disabilities has evolved over time.
One approach used previously by service providers was to write outcomes drawn from domain- based developmental milestones Bailey and Wolery, They are not derived from a theory of development. Many were originally developed because of their ability to differentiate the perfor- mance of children of different ages on standardized tests. And the sequence of development for typically developing children may not represent the best sequence for children with disabilities. A contrasting approach to outcome identification, which is now considered recommended practice, is to develop outcomes that are functional McWilliam, Universal Design and Accommodations Universal design is a relatively new phenomenon that has direct application to assessment design for all children, especially young children with special needs.
Ideally, all assessments should be designed in accord with principles of universal design, thereby minimizing the need for accommodations. Universal design has its origins in architectural efforts to design physical environments.
The goal in applying principles of universal design to assess- ments is to develop assessments that allow for the widest range of participation and allow for valid inferences about performance Thompson and Thurlow, Applying the principles of uni- versal design to the development of assessments for accountability for elementary and secondary school-age children, Thompson and Thurlow identified seven elements of universally designed assess- ments Table Some of the principles, such as maximum readability and maximum legibility, are primarily applicable to assessments in which the child will be reading passages of text, but most of these principles can be applied to early childhood assessment design.
A principle of special relevance for young children is the need for precisely defined constructs. Application of universal design principles is intended to minimize construct-irrelevance variance. Universal design principles are especially relevant for standardized assess- ments but also apply to criterion-based assessments. Even with the application of universal design principles, the need may remain to develop accommodations to allow some children with special needs to be assessed with a particular instru- ment and for their scores to accurately reflect their capabilities.
Precisely defined The specific constructs tested must be clearly defined constructs so that all construct-irrelevant cognitive, sensory, emotional, and physical barriers can be removed.
Accessible, Accessibility is built into items from the beginning, and nonbiased items bias review procedures ensure that quality is retained in all items. Amenable to The test design facilitates the use of needed accommodations accommodations e.
Simple, clear, All instructions and procedures are simple, clear, and and intuitive presented in understandable language. Maximum legibility Characteristics that ensure easy decipherability are applied to text, to tables, figures, and illustrations, and to response formats.
Who pays for the independent evaluation? The answer is that some IEEs are at public expense and others are paid for by the parents. The public agency may grant your request and pay for the IEE, or it may initiate a hearing to show that its own evaluation was appropriate. The public agency may ask why you object to the public evaluation. However, the agency may not require you to explain, and it may not unreasonably delay either providing the IEE at public expense or initiating a due process hearing to defend the public evaluation.
As part of a due process hearing, a hearing officer may also request an IEE; if so, that IEE must be at public expense. Whenever an IEE is publicly funded, that IEE must meet the same criteria that the public agency uses when it initiates an evaluation. The public agency must tell you what these criteria are—such as location of the evaluation and the qualifications of the examiner—and they must be the same criteria the public agency uses when it initiates an evaluation, to the extent they are consistent with your right to an IEE.
However, the public agency may not impose other conditions or timelines related to your obtaining an IEE at public expense. Of course, you have the right to have your child independently evaluated at any time at your own expense. Note: When the same tests are repeated within a short time period, the validity of the results can be seriously weakened. The results of this evaluation must be considered by the public agency, if it meets agency criteria, in any decision made with respect to providing your child with FAPE.
The results may also be presented as evidence at a hearing regarding your child. After the initial evaluation, evaluations must be conducted at least every three years generally called a triennial evaluation after your child has been placed in special education. Informed parental consent is also necessary for reevaluations. Your consent is not required for the review of existing data on your child.
If the group determines that additional data are needed, then the public agency must administer tests and other evaluation materials as needed to produce the data. Prior to collecting this additional information, the agency must obtain your informed written consent.
You may find the following sections of our website particularly helpful for understanding the requirements and responsibilities intrinsic to the special education process. Evaluating School-Aged Children for Disability. Back to top Purposes of Evaluation The initial evaluation of a child is required by IDEA before any special education and related services can be provided to that child. These categories are: Autism Deafness Deaf-blindness Developmental delay Emotional disturbance Hearing impairment Intellectual disability Multiple disabilities Orthopedic impairment Other health impairment Specific learning disability Speech or language impairment Traumatic brain injury Visual impairment, including blindness.
Back to top Having a disability, though, does not necessarily make a child eligible for special education. There are at least two ways in which a child may be identified to receive an evaluation under IDEA: 1 Parents may request that their child be evaluated. Back to top Giving Parents Notice It is important to know that IDEA requires the school system to notify parents in writing that it would like to evaluate their child or that it is refusing to evaluate the child.
Back to top Parental Consent Before the school may proceed with the evaluation, parents must give their informed written consent. As the Department of Education notes: …once parents opt out of the public school system, States and school districts do not have the same interest in requiring parents to agree to the evaluation of their children.
Unless the parents request an assessment, the public agency is not required to conduct one. If it is decided that additional data is needed, the group then identifies what is needed to determine: whether your son or daughter has a particular category of disability e. Back to top Variety, Variety! Share this: Email Tweet. Like this: Like Loading Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public.
Name required. Eye on Early Education focuses on the twin goals of ensuring that Massachusetts children have access to high-quality early education and become proficient readers by the end of third grade. Contact your local school department about public pre-k and kindergarten programs.
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