putting the pieces of the puzzle together: working as a cross-disciplinary team in conducting early...
TRANSCRIPT
Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together:
Working As a Cross-Disciplinary Team In
Conducting Early Childhood Assessments
Laurie Ford, Ph.D.Dept. of Educational & Counselling Psych & Special EducationUniversity of British Columbia
What Develops? Understanding Assessment in Early Childhood Education Conference UBC - May 13, 2004
Special Thanks…..My graduate students at UBC & USC
Especially Carla, Jillian, Kat, Lori, MB, Sarah, Terri, & Vanessa
My colleagues at UBC & USCEspecially Rich, Susan, Hillel & Connie
Those who taught me about the assessment of young children
Especially Bob, Nancy, Bill, & Deb
The children, families, and professionals who have taught me……
What I Hope to Accomplish
√ Overview Key Issues in Effective Service Delivery for Young Children
√ Review Domains Critical to Examine in the Assessment & Intervention of Young Children
√ Highlight Aspects to Consider When Conducting Developmentally Appropriate, Culturally Responsive Service Delivery to Young Children
√ Discuss aspects of working together as a team in conducting assessments
√ Review common cognitive assessment instruments
Early childhood assessment is a field in transition. Dominated from its inception
by psychometric models and measurement strategies used with older children, it is only now beginning to forge
a methodology that is unique to young children.
Meisels & Atkins-Burnett, 2000
Goal of Early Childhood Assessment
To acquire new information and understanding that will help
facilitate the child’s development and ability to function well in the
home and family environment……
Understand and Describing, when Assessing
A Child’s Development
We need to….
Effective Service Delivery for Young
Children
MultiMulti-disciplinary
InterInter-disciplinary
“TransTrans-disciplinary”
Effective Assessment & Intervention with
Young Children√ Multi-Domain√ Multi-Source√ Family-Centered√ Interdisciplinary√ Ecologically Valid√ Non-discriminatory√ Formative and Summative
Key Domains in the Service Delivery to Young
Children
Cognitive
Social-Emotional
Language
Adaptive
Physical
Health
Home
Family Community
Sensory
Key People Involved in the Assessment of Young
ChildrenPsychologist
Social-Worker
Nutritionist
NurseParent/
Caregiver
OT/PT
SiblingsPhysician
SLP
Extended Family
Educator
Audiologist
Optometrist
Approaches in the Assessment of Young
Children
ObservationInterview
Formal Procedures
Informal Procedures
Working As Team
√ Role ReleaseAllowing one team member to take on a role that might normally be the responsibility of another
√ Arena AssessmentSimultaneous evaluation of the child by multiple
professionals from different disciplines
√ Case Manager/Team FacilitatorConsider one point person and joint evaluation reports
Factors External to the Child Which Impact on School Readiness & Early Child
Development• Family Income
– Effects of poverty on children’s development
• Other Family Resources– Parental time and stress
• Community Resources– Family support programs, child care programs
• Societal Decisions– Paid family leave in case of illness, reinbursement of
child care costs
(Doherty, 1997)
Child
Preschool Kindergarten
Time
Neighborhood Family
Teachers Peers
Child
Neighborhood
Teachers Peers
Family
Rimm-Kaufman and Pianta (2000) propose an ecologically informed approach to the study of school transitions
Ecological and Dynamic Model of Transition Involves the combined influence of the child, direct,
indirect, and dynamic effects of contexts on children’s transition to school and the bidirectional interactions that exist between the child and their social networks.
Central importance of this model is the emphasis on development of relationships over time
An Ecological Perspective
On the Assessment of Young Children
The science of strange behavior of children in strange situations with strange adults for the
briefest possible period of time
Bronfenbrenner, 1977
Principles of Appropriate Assessment of Young
Children (adapted from Greenspan & Meisels, 1996)
• Assessment should be based on an integrated developmental model.
• Assessment involves multiple sources of information and multiple components.
• An assessment should follow an orderly sequence.
Principles of Appropriate Assessment of Young
Children (adapted from Greenspan & Meisels, 1996)
• The child’s relationship and interactions with their caregiver should be the cornerstone of the assessment.
• An understanding of the sequence of typical development is an essential framework to interpreting differences.
Principles of Appropriate Assessment of Young
Children (adapted from Greenspan & Meisels, 1996)
• An assessment should emphasize attention to the child’s developmental level and way of organizing experiences and functional capacity in multiple domains.
• The assessment should identify the child’s current competencies and strengths, as well as the competencies that will constitute developmental progression in a continuous growth model of human development.
Principles of Appropriate Assessment of Young
Children (adapted from Greenspan & Meisels, 1996)
• Assessment is a collaborative process.• The process of assessment should always
be viewed as the first step in a potential intervention.
• Reassessment of a child’s developmental status should occur in the context of day-to-day family or EI activities or both.
Continuum of Assessment & Intervention
• Assessment and intervention are distinct processes, they exist on a continuum.
• The goal of any good assessment should be to design effective intervention for the young child and their family.
Measuring Intelligence
• More broadly we think of measuring cognitive abilities
• Most tests provide an overall quotient or score– Every test calls it something different
• The more meaningful information typically comes from examining the factor, component, or subtest scores
Common Cognitive Assessment Instruments• Intelligence Tests or Measures of Cognitive
Abilities…..– Wechsler Scales (WISC-IV; WPPSI-III; WAIS-III)– Stanford-Binet Scales of Intelligence (SB5)– Differential Ability Scales (DAS)– Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities
(WJIII COG)– Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children-II
(KABC-II)
Wechsler Scales• Generally the most widely used• Provides an overall score -- Full Scale IQ (FSIQ)• Start with Two Scale Breakdown
– Verbal (VIQ) & Performance (PIQ)
• Secondary Factors are Useful for Interpretation– Verbal Comprehension (VC), Perceptual Organization
(PO); Freedom from Distractibility (FD); Processing Speed (PS)
The Wechsler Scales
• WISC-IV (Wechsler, 2003)– Ages 6 to 16.5
• WPPSI-III (Wechsler, 2001)– Ages 2-7
• WAIS-III (Weschler, 1997)– Ages 16 through senior adult
Stanford-Binet Scales of Intelligence- Fifth
Edition• No Bonus for Speed• Overall score is Full Scale IQ (FSIQ)• Two Primary Domains
– Verbal IQ (VIQ) & Nonverbal IQ (NVIQ)
• Additional Factors– Fluid Reasoning– Knowledge– Memory– Visual Spatial Processing– Quantitative Reasoning
All Five Factors Measured in Verbal and Nonverbal Domains
Fluid ReasoningKnowledgeQuantitative ReasoningVisual-Spatial ProcessingWorking Memory
VerbalNonverbal
FACTORS DOMAINS
Full Scale IQ
Fluid Reasoning
Knowledge
Quantitative Reasoning
Visual-Spatial Processing
Working Memory
5 Nonverbal Subtests
Fluid Reasoning
Knowledge
Quantitative Reasoning
Visual-Spatial Processing
Working Memory
5 Verbal Subtests
Factor
Indexes
Fluid Reasoning
Knowledge
Quantitative Reasoning
Visual-Spatial
Processing
Working Memory
Nonverbal IQ Verbal IQ
Differential Ability Scales
• Overall Score is the General Cognitive Ability score (GCA)
• Three Main Factors– Verbal Reasoning– Nonverbal Reasoning– Spatial Reasoning
Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive
Abilities• Overall Score is called the General Intellectual Ability score (GIA)
• Seven Broad Factors– Fluid Reasoning (Gf)– Comprehension-Knowledge (Gc)– Long-Term Retrieval (Glr)– Visual-Spatial (Gv)– Auditory Processing (Ga)– Short-Term Memory (Gsm)– Processing Speed (Gs)