Alternative and Integrative Assessment Approaches

What is modifiability?

What a child can do when given the maximum amount of help

Questions to answer when looking at a portfolio assessment? (3)

What is the communication problem? Why is the learner experiencing the problem? What can be done to remediate the problem?

What is minimal competency core?

a checklist of things to look for in a language sample

What it test-teach-retest?

administer a pretest to identify deficient skills, provide an intervention designed to modify client's level of functioning with skill, administer posttest to assess modifiability of the client's skill level

What are the disadvantages of processing dependent measures? (3)

are they true measures of communication skills, may not directly reflect language skills, tough to develop a treatment plan

What is a portfolio assessment?

assessment should be based on specific educational needs and look at the whole child

What are the advantages of criterion referenced and client specific assessments? (5)

avoid pitfalls of standardized tests, behaviors to be assessed are sampled more adequately, results are uniquely relevant to the child, results directly lead to treatment goals, provide more reliable and valid data than standardized tests

What is dynamic assessment?

brief periods of intervention are provided to see if a child can improve on certain tasks

What type of assessment is developed for a given client, takes into account what needs to be assessed and how, and uses about 15-20 exemplars?

client-specific

How are criterion-referenced and client-specific tests administered? (4)

clinician develops the stimulus items, use knowledge gathered through case history, stimulus items come from the home environment, results are interpreted to be informative of current skill level

What is testing the limits or task variability?

clinician explains to child why they missed test items

What type of assessment do you use existing non-standardized tools and interpret data in terms of whether the measured skills meet mastery criterion?

criterion-referenced

What are the advantages of portfolio assessments? (5)

documentation of improvement over time, interdisciplinary collaboration, assessment of targeted skills in a variety of contexts, evaluation of communication skills in a relevant manner, assistance in developing treatment goals and strategies

What are the disadvantages of the criterion refernced and client specific assessments? (3)

don't allow for comparison with a normative sample, don't allow for diagnosis of a disorder, more time consuming because you have to prepare the materials

What is the hierarchy of graduated prompting? (5)

general statement, question designed to elicit a specific response, sentence completion tasks, indirect models, direct models

How do you teach/stimulate the selected skills in a dynamic assessment?

graduated prompting, testing the limits or task variability, and test-teach-retest

What are the advantages of dynamic assessment? (4)

helps clinician plan for treatment, indicates modifiability and ability to carryover learning, may not see as many children due to modifiability, use standardized tests in more flexible way

What are processing dependent measures?

helps identify valid measures that are not affected by the subject's prior knowledge or experience

What are the disadvantages of portfolio assessment? (5)

lack of quantitative information, time-consuming, difficulty in managing portfolio, analysis of contents and relating to other members, limited storage facilities

What are some tasks of processing dependent measures? (3)

memory tasks, competing stimuli tasks, perceptual tasks

What are the advantages of processing dependent measures? (3)

method for langauge screening that is not culturally/linguistically biased, quick and easy to administer, distinguishes minority children who deficit is real and not related to lack of knowledge or experience

What are two types of authentic assessment?

minimal competency core and contrastive analysis

Can you compare results from criterion referenced and client specific assessments to other children/a normative sample?

no

What is graduated prompting?

predetermined hierarchy of prompts designed to facilitate the child's responses during the assessment

What is an authentic assessment?

rely heavily on speech samples taken in familiar environments

What is contrastive analysis?

separating dialectical differences in speech and langauge from clinically significant speech and language errors

What are the disadvantages of authentic assessment? (3)

takes more time than standardized tests, results may be more subjective, may not meet workplace requirements

What are the advantages of authentic assessment? (4)

valid diagnosis with fewer false positives, samples collected in familiar, natural context, no need for standardized tests, used for children of different cultural backgrounds

What are the disadvantages of dynamic assessment? (4)

variability in approaches creates reliability issues, extraordinary time due to assessments that may require treatment, difficult to interpret standardization test results, children may be denied services

Does dynamic assessment assess modifiabilty of children's langauge differences?

yes

Does dynamic assessment differentiate between cultural or dialectal language differences and language disorder?

yes