With the enactment of the Education for All Handicapped
Children Act (PL 94-142) of 1975 and its amendments (PL-99-457 of 1986
and PL 101-476 of 1990), all children are entitled to appropriate free
education and related services regardless of disabilities. As a result,
major strides have been made toward providing services for developmentally
delayed children. These services include transportation, case management,
family training and counseling, home visits for counseling, health services,
medical services for diagnostic purposes, nursing services, nutrition
services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychological services,
social-work services, special classroom instruction, adapted physical
education, audiology, and speech-language pathology. To gain access to
these services, children who are suspected of having developmental or
physical disabilities have to be referred to trained and qualified individuals
or multi-disciplinary teams for assessment in cognitive, physical, language
and speech, psychosocial, and self-help areas.
Young children, however, are difficult subjects to assess
accurately because of their activity level and distractibility, shorter
attention span, wariness of strangers, and inconsistent performance in
unfamiliar environments. Other factors that may affect a child's performance
include cultural differences and language barriers, parents not having
books to read to their child and a child's lack of interaction with other
children. Consequently, assessment of infants, toddlers, and young children
requires sensitivity to the child's background, and knowledge of testing
limitations and procedures with young children.
Current Trends
Assessment, differentiated from test administration
and interpretation, is usually a comprehensive process of gathering information
about a child across developmental areas. Benner (1992) reported several
continua along which assessments fall: (a) norm-referenced to criterion-referenced,
product oriented to process oriented assessment; (b) formal to informal
assessment, direct to indirect assessment; (c) standardized tests to handicap-accommodating
tests; and (d) single-discipline approach to team approach. The present
trend in preschool assessment is toward the latter perspective of each
continuum with strengths being emphasized rather than deficits.
Thus, current trends in preschool assessment include
a move away from a "single assessor" model to an environmental model which
is designed for the individual child. Through a team approach, children
are evaluated with family members present, and factors of the home and
social environment are taken into consideration. Because of the increased
situation-specificity of developmental tests, which can be administered
by professionals other than practicing psychologists, their use is increasing
(Niemeyer, J. A., personal communication, August 19, 1994).
It has been recommended that norm-referenced tests,
such as intelligence tests which historically have been used as a measure
of ability and as an entrance criterion for programs such as Head Start,
be replaced with assessments based on multiple theoretical perspectives
(Niemeyer, J. A. personal communication, August 19, 1994). A more holistic
evaluation of the child can be obtained by integrating tests of cognitive
ability with other measures such as assessment of social and motor skills
development.
Characteristics of Preschool Assessment
In identifying appropriate interventions at the preschool
level, there is less focus on testing and more on evaluating the individual
child. Some of the more important characteristics are as follows:
Criterion-Referenced and Process Oriented
Criterion-referenced tests allow each child to be
assessed as an individual. Comparing the child with developmental milestones
and selecting areas to reinforce allows interventions to be specifically
tailored to a child. Attention is given to the process of the interacti
ons (i.e., whether the assessment is being conducted in a way that optimizes
the child's demonstration of abilities).
Informal, Indirect, and Naturalistic Evaluations
Informal, relaxed settings where the child can be
as much at ease as possible are recommended when doing assessment. Assessing
a child within the context of his or her community and the interacting
social systems, and taking into account the family's needs, resources,
and concerns affect both the evaluation and possible interventions.
One of the most important developments in this area is Trans-disciplinary
Playbased Assessment (Linder, 1993), during which the child engages
in play with a familiar person and the interactions of the child with
the adult are observed by a team. The assessment is constructed so that
the team can communicate with the play facilitator concerning unobserved
skills (e.g., can the child stack three blocks). The combination of
informal play-based assessment and more directed and structured activities
provides greater opportunity for a high level of performance (Bagnato
& Neisworth, 1994).
Handicap Accommodating Assessments
Standardized assessment procedures present problems
when a child has a handicap that impedes test performance even though
the area being examined is not related to the handicap. Attention is
being directed toward developing assessment procedures that accommodate
for handicaps and provide a more accurate evaluation of the child.
Multi-Disciplinary Trans-Disciplinary Approach
Because single discipline evaluations provide a "snapshot"
from a limited perspective, assessments involving more than one discipline
are recommended. Options include multi-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary,
and trans-disciplinary assessments. Multi-disciplinary teams are based
on the medical model where many disciplines evaluate individually and
provide reports to a central figure. Inter-disciplinary team members
assess the child individually and then convene to discuss findings and
form joint recommendations. With a trans-disciplinary team, representation
of all disciplines that are needed for a child (e.g., occupational therapy,
speech therapy, medical doctor, nutritionist) are present, and the child
is observed and discussed by all at the same time, thus providing an
evaluation of the total child.
The Role of Mental Health Practitioners
Many current methods for preschool assessment
are designed to be convenient for both the assessors and the families,
and to have all individuals involved with a child participate directly
in the evaluation process. Improvement is fostered when a holistic concept
of the child is provided through a multi-disciplinary or trans-disciplinary
assessment that is part of a larger set of conditions which promote
change, such as family system interventions (AAHE, 1992). In many instances,
the mental health practitioners (e.g., counselors) will not be directly
involved in the test administration, but will work with the family during
the process. In particular, mental health practitioners can provide
information on testing, legal requirements, and the merits and limitations
of preschool assessment methods. It is helpful for the parents to know
that the principles of good assessment practice reflect a multi-dimensional,
integrated understanding of learning, explicitly stated purposes, experiences
that lead to results, and continuous intervention and re-evaluation.
Mental health practitioners who are actively involved as part of the
assessment team evaluating a referred child need to be familiar with
the different assessment methods and their limitations, as well as current
assessment trends and the reasoning behind them. This is especially
important given that as few as 10% of tests administered to preschool
children have been reported as appropriate to screen that population
(Wortham, 1990). If mental health practitioners are not participants
in the assessment process but are in the position of working with a
child or the family after an assessment has been completed and a referral
has been made, they need to evaluate whether the instruments employed,
the assessment environment, and the way in which the evaluation was
administered were appropriate for the particular child.
Summary
Major changes in the level of interest and evaluation
methods employed in preschool assessment have occurred in the past decade.
The current trend is toward an ecological, child-centered approach which
includes trans- or multi-disciplinary evaluations. Such approaches evaluate
the "total child" rather than a specific area.
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