Child Developmental Evaluation Methods

Assessment in Special Education

• Assessment is the process of collecting data to make decisions about students or schools, aiming to aid teachers in understanding the level of every student and deciding the next steps to ensure proper learning.
• The importance of assessment in Special Education enables teachers to recognize students' difficulties in school and their advancement towards goals, allowing them to modify their teaching methods to aid students' success.

Difference between Assessment and Testing

• No clear distinction provided in the text, but assessment is a broader process that includes testing as one of its components.

Legal Bases of Assessment for Individuals with Disabilities

• The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act requires stronger accountability for results, specifying that schools must have challenging educational standards, test children starting from grade 3 every year, and specify progress objectives that ensure proficiency of every child.

Developmental Assessment

• Developmental assessment is the acquisition of qualitative and quantitative skills in a social environment, involving four areas: gross motor development, fine motor development, personal/social development, and language development.
• The normal development pattern is constant, with skills acquired sequentially, and the rate varies from child to child.
• Later goals depend on achieving earlier goals in the same field.
• Genetic and environmental factors contribute positively and negatively to development.

Types of Developmental Assessment

• Surveillance: a flexible, longitudinal, and documented process that maintains a developmental history, making accurate observations of the child.
• Screening: a brief, formal, and standardized evaluation that aids in the early identification of children who should receive more intensive assessment.
• Examples of developmental screening tests:
  • Denver II Developmental Screening Test
  • Phatak's Baroda Screening Test
  • Trivandrum Development Screening Chart
  • CAT/Clams (Clinical Adaptive Test/Clinical Linguistic and Auditory Milestone Scale)
  • Goodenough-Harris Draw-a-Person Test
  • Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) - 2nd Ed.

Developmental Assessment Tools

• Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-Third Edition (Bayley-III)
• Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale
• Developmental Activities Screening Inventory-SECOND EDITION (DASI-II)

Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-Third Edition (Bayley-III)

• Age range: birth to 3.5 years
• Method of administration: individually administered in a play-based format for Cognitive, Language, and Motor Scales; caregiver questionnaire for Social-Emotional and Adaptive Functioning.
• Yields scaled scores, composite scores, and percentile ranks.
• Approximate time to administer: 50 minutes for 1-12 months; 90 minutes for 13-42 months.

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale

• Description: intelligence testing for ages 2 to 23 years and beyond
• Yields Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
• Scoring: standardized scoring, composite mean of 100 with a standard deviation of 16
• Interpretation: Mental Retardation IQ Definitions, including borderline, mild, moderate, severe, and profound mental retardation.