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

laurie.ford@ubc.ca

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)