Assessment in Early Childhood

1. Assessment in Early Childhood

2. Assessment in Early Childhood • For over 4 decades developmental psychologists have provided evidence from research indicating that early experience and early intervention have positive outcomes. • This research was the basis for Project Headstart in 1964, the authorization of the Handicapped Children’s Early Education Program (HCEEP) in 1968, and PL99-457 in 1986. Source: K Gerken, 2000

3. Assessment in Early Childhood • Raimy & Raimy’s review of the research on the effectiveness of early childhood interventions resulted in their reporting their findings under six principles: 1. Developmental timing-interventions that begin earlier in development and continue longer usually have greater benefits. 2. Program intensity-more intensive programs with children and parents who actively participate produce greater positive effects. 3. Direct provision of learning experiences-direct educational experiences for children vs. parent training only result in greater and longer lasting benefits. 4. Program breadth and flexibility-comprehensive services via many approaches produce greater positive effects. 5. Individual differences-different programs may be needed to produce similar outcomes in children with different risk factors. 6. Ecological domain-adequate environmental supports are needed to maintain positive outcomes (Ramey and Ramey, 1998, pp. 115-118).

4. Assessment in Early Childhood Three major reasons to assess infants and preschoolers: • Determine eligibility for special services/interventions • Evaluate effectiveness of intervention programs • To determine children’s readiness to enter school (academic and social readiness)

5. Assessment in Early Childhood • Appropriate assessment is the framework for appropriate intervention. • There has been a shift from product oriented assessment to process oriented assessment along with naturalistic formats • Fewell (1991) believes that these types of assessment emerged from applied settings: adaptive assessment, arena assessment, ecological inventories, interactive assessment, and judgment-based assessment.

6. Assessment in Early Childhood • Principles and Goals for Early Childhood Assessment (1998) • Assessment policies should be designed recognizing that reliability and validity of assessments increase with children’s age. • Assessments should be age-appropriate in both content and the method of data collection. • Assessments should be linguistically appropriate, recognizing that to some extent all assessments are measures of language. • Assessment should bring about benefits for children. • Parents should be a valued source of assessment information, as well as an audience for assessment results. • Assessments should be tailored to a specific purpose and should be reliable, valid, and fair for that purpose.

7. Assessment in Early Childhood • The parents/guardians of the preschoolers must be an integral part of the assessment process from the beginning to the end, not passive sources of information or audience members for assessment results. • More attention must be paid to the diversity present in preschoolers, beyond linguistic differences and educators and other human service providers must understand and be responsive to diversity. • There must be program evaluations. • There must be attempts to link the interpretation and reporting of assessment information to intervention.

8. Assessment in Early Childhood • Assessment Teams: • Unidisciplinary • Multidisciplinary • Interdisciplinary • Transdisciplinary (See Table 2 handout, Gerken, K. 2000)

9. Assessment in Early Childhood(Guidelines) • Assessment must be done within the context of the family. • The assessor must be culturally competent. • The assessment process includes: • Child find/Case finding • Tracking • Identification/Screening • Diagnosis/Educational Planning

10. Assessment in Early Childhood • How do you get where you need to go? • Assistive Technology and Adaptive Assessment • Informal Assessment • Interviews • Developmental scales and checklists • Curriculum-based assessment • Portfolio Assessment • Observation • Play-based assessment (Linder’s TPBA and TPBI, 1993ab)

11. Assessment in Early Childhood • Functional Analysis/Assessment • Formal Assessment/Standardized Assessment • Neurobehavioral assessment • Intelligence/cognition • Motor Skills • Communication Skills • Adaptive Behavior • Social Development • Environmental Assessment • Assessment Systems

12. Assessment Issues • Definitions • Family priorities • Limitations of the child and examiner • Limitations of the instruments

13. Assessment Issues continued According to Salvia & Ysseldyke, there are three major problems in assessing infants and toddlers: • Performances of young children are variable and not good predictors of future behaviors. • Need to be cautious in reporting the results of readiness or developmental tests as level of current functioning. • The textbook authors report that a student must be labeled to be eligible for preschool services. However, we know that the 1997 reauthorization of IDEA allows a DD label up to age 9 and Iowa and many other states are using the term EI versus categorical labels for children.