Week 9: Assessment

1. Week 9: Assessment SPCD 582 October 30, 2008 Cosbey

2. What are some areas that you would assess? • The student • His/her abilities and disabilities • Family • Educational history • Learning context(s)

3. Important Point • Those areas are all important and should all be addressed • To make your assessment more meaningful, you should assess the child within the environment

4. General Assessment Information

5. Analyzing the Communicative Environment • “It is just as important to assess the social environment of the students as it is to assess the communicative skills of the student” (Downing, 1999, p. 51).

6. The Need for Inclusion • “Experts in communication intervention stress the value of teaching communication skills in general education classrooms where students with severe disabilities have the support of their peer role models” (Downing, 1999, p. 51).

7. Bronfenbrenner, 1979

8. Language Samples • Collect language samples in multiple, naturalistic contexts • Use familiar and culturally appropriate conversational partners • Do not try to elicit specific language forms

9. Language Samples (continued) • Do not prompt or pressure for answers during the conversation • Videotape or audiotape for later • Note taking may interfere with the naturalness of the interaction • Without taping, you may miss the subtleties in language use

10. Language Samples (continued) • Analysis should focus of • Form (sounds, sentence structure, etc.) • Content • USE! • What elements of language USE should you analyze? • Be careful comparing language samples of diverse learners to published developmental norms/sequences!

11. Observations • Observations can and should be an important part of your overall assessment strategy. • What do I mean by observation?

12. Important Note! • While you can and should assess students via observation and dialogue, you must have a focus and criteria for evaluation, and you MUST document your assessment.

13. Effective Observations • Have a clear purpose and focus • Are documented • Rely on objective reporting, not subjective impressions, and • Are systematic

14. Caution! • “Dynamic assessment is not intended as a substitute for existing approaches. Dynamic assessment is presented as a unique and important addition to the diagnostician’s repertory. Dynamic assessment responds to questions that are not addressed by other procedures” • (Lidz, 1991, p. xi).

15. Which Assessment Procedure is Best? • It depends on what you want to know!

16. What if you want to . . . . • Compare a student with his/her same-age peers? • Use a norm-referenced test • Compare a student’s skills with a predetermined developmental hierarchy? • Use a developmentally referenced assessment (e.g., milestones) • Specify a student’s current level of performance? • Use a criterion-referenced assessment • Monitor a student’s progress within a particular curricular area? • Use a curriculum based measure • Assess a student’s response to intervention or problem-solving skills, or the most effective means of facilitating that student’s learning? • Use dynamic assessment

17. What if you want to. . . . • Assess a student’s response to intervention or problem-solving skills, or the most effective means of facilitating that student’s learning? • Use dynamic assessment

18. Dynamic Assessment • Is based on a different concept of intelligence from traditional IQ tests – it is based on students’ “learning ability.” • Provides information on the student’s learning processes (why they might not be learning and what supports their learning). • Provides a direct connection with intervention.

19. Dynamic Assessment Characteristics • Test – teach – re-test format. • Focus on learner modifiability. • Goal of developing learner-specific and effective interventions – what helps this student learn best? (Lidz,1991)

20. “Dynamic assessment was never intended to offer an alternative basis either for classifying children or for placing them in special education programs.” (Lidz, 1991, p. 5)

21. “the intent of dynamic assessment is to improve understanding of the learner within any educational setting, as well as inform interventions within any setting.” (Lidz, 1991, p. 5)