Assessing Special Students

7/31/2019 Assessing Special Students

1/21

KINDS OF ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES:

Many types of assessment procedures are available, requiring varying degrees of

expertise. Several of these strategies will be employed in any complete educational

assessment. Some combination may be used in the initial assessment, or they can be

used individually to monitor program success.

FORMAL STRATEGIES:

Formal tests are structured assessment procedures with specific guidelines for

administration, scoring, and interpretation of results. Norm-referenced tests compare a

students performance to that of a normative group. These tests may be group or

individually administered and are available for most academic subjects as well as

other areas of learning. Their use is limited to students who resemble the group used

as a norm in compiling the test scores. The direction for administration, scoring, and

interpretation of the tests are usually very explicit. The results may be expressed with

a variety of quantitative scores, such as grade equivalents, standard scores, and

percentile ranks. Information about the tests statistical validity and reliability is

usually presented in the manual. The results from norm-referenced tests ar e used in a

number of ways, including documentation of eligibility for special education and

related services and identification of general strengths and weaknesses in school

learning.

An assessment may be administered to a group of individuals or to one person. Group

procedures usually penalize exceptional students. Such procedures are generally not


2/21

recommended for this population because they require skills in reading, following

directions, and so forth, that the handicapped student may not have. Thus, the tests

may serve merely to screen, that is, to identify those students who may be

handicapped. However, group tests do take much less time to administer than most

individual tests.

Some are easy to administer, but are difficult to design; furthermore, interpretation is

often difficult because of a lack of guidelines.

INFORMAL STRATEGIES

A variety of informal procedures are used in educational assessment to determine

present levels of performance, document student progress, and/or direct instructional

changes. A distinction is often made between the formal procedures just described

and these less formal techniques.

Formal procedures usually are standardized, normative tests. Administration, scoring,

and interpretation procedures are clearly delineated. Formal tests yield many different

kinds of scores, the majority of which provide information about a students standing

in relation to other students.


3/21

KINDS OF ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES FOR

SPECIAL STUDENTS:

Special educational assessment involves students referred to as handicapped by

P.L.94-142, that is,

Those children evaluated as being mentally retarded, hard of hearing, deaf, speech

impaired, visually handicapped, seriously emotionally disturbed, orthopedically

impaired, other health impaired, deaf-blind, multi-handicapped, or as having specific

learning disabilities, who because of those impairments need special education and

related services. (P.L.94-142, & 121a.5)

The mildly or educable mentally retarded, mildly emotionally disturbed or behavior

disordered, and learning disabled students comprise the largest group of all

handicapped students, about 7% of the total school-age population, and are frequently

found in regular classrooms. From an educational perspective, these students share

many common psychological, academic, and social problems requiring assessment. In

educational terms, they are more alike than different.

Hallahan, Kauffman, and Lloyd (1985) consider the major distinction among the

mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, and learning disabled to be the frequency of

particular problems. The area of primary concern for retarded students is general

intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior; for the emotionally disturbed,

emotional and social development; and for the learning disabled, academic and

language disorders. While mildly handicapped students may have problems in any of

these areas, each handicap is characterized by its own set of frequently occurring

problems.


4/21

TABLE 2-2 Steps in educational assessment:

1. Screening-The student is identified as having a possible handicappingcondition related to school performance problems.

2. Referral-The student is referred to special education for assessment and his/herparents informed.

3. Design of the Individualized Assessment Plan-Stated assessment questions areused to guide the assessment. The procedures, personnel, and timeline are

designated.

4. Parental permission for assessment-Parents agree, in writing, to theassessment.

5. Administration, scoring, and interpretation-The appropriate formal andinformal diagnostic instruments a re used by the assessment team.

6. Reporting results-The assessment data are interpreted and discussed with thestudents parents and other team members.

7. Deciding eligibility for special education-The team examines the studentsneeds and assessment data in relationship to eligibility criteria.

8. Design of the Individualized Education Plan-The team establishes goals andobjectives of the students program, including the amount of time in the least

restrictive environment and a timeline for program evaluation.

9. Parental agreement to the IEP-The students parents indicate their agreementwith all elements of the IEP, including placement in special education.


5/21

CRITERIA FOR THE SELECTION OF

ASSESSMENT TOOLS:

One purpose of P.L. 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of

1975, was the establishment of a set of procedures to guard against inappropriate

assessment and placement practices. As Table 3-1 suggests, this law provides

safeguards to prevent reoccurrence of past abuses. Although appropriate assessment

procedures are mandated by P.L.94-142, its regulations, and the state laws resulting

from it, actual practice may fall short of intended goals. However, special education

laws do attempt to describe an exemplary system for assessment of handicapped

students.

LEGAL GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSMENT:

The regulations for P.L. 94-142 provide specific guidelines for the evaluation and

placement of handicapped individuals in special education programs. This law

focuses on the use of assessment information for legal decisions, that is, decisions

about identification and determination of eligibility for special education services.

This type of information has implications for long-range instructional decisions such

as those associated with design of the Individualized Education Program (IEP).

However, laws such as P.L.94-142 do not attempt to regulate classroom assessment

and the day-to-day instructional decisions faced by practitioners.

P.L.94-142 includes several guidelines for the selection of assessment tools and the

conduct of the assessment process. They are described in the following section.


6/21

ASSESSMENT IS NONDISCRIMINATORY:

P.L.94-142 expressly forbids three types of discrimination. First, assessment tools

must be free of racial and cultural bias. Tests and other procedures must be selected

on this basis, and care must be taken to prevent the intrusion of bias into test

administration. Second, if a students native language is not English, every effort must

be made to provide assessment tools in the students language. This mandate extends

not only to individuals who speak languages other than English but also to those

whose mode of communication is not spoken language.

ASSESSMENT FOCUSES ON EDUCATIONAL

NEEDS:

The major purpose of assessment is to determine educational needs. Although the

presence of a handicapping condition must be established to support eligibility for

special education services, simply identifying a student as mentally retarded or

learning disabled is insufficient. Attention must also be directed to the specific

educational needs resulting from the disability.

ASSESSMENT IS COMPREHENSIVE AND

MULTIDISCIPLINARY:

All important areas of student performance must be studied. Although intelligence

tests may be used, they must be accompanied by other measures that assess


7/21

educational needs. The results of a single measure must never be the sole basis for

placement in special education. The assessment must be so comprehensive that no

important area of performance is neglected; several sources should be consulted for

information about the student. Health, vision, hearing, social and emotional status,

general intelligence, academic performance, communicative status, and motor

abilities may be considered, if these are areas of potential need for the student under

assessment. The assessment must also be multidisciplinary. The team must consist of

professionals representing several disciplines, including at least one person

knowledgeable about the students suspected disability.

ASSESSMENT TOOLS ARE TECHNICALLY

ADEQUATE AND ADMINISTERED BY TRAINED

PROFESSIONALS:

Assessment devices must be good measurement tools that have been validated for the

specific purpose for which they will be used. They must display adequate technical

quality to insure accurate results. If the goal is study of reading achievement, the

instrument chosen must be a valid measure of reading achievement. Assessment must

also be conducted by trained professionals. The administration, scoring, and

interpretation rules set forth in the measures manual must be scrupulously followed.


8/21

RIGHTS OF HANDICAPPED STUDENTS AND

THEIR PARENTS ARE PROTECTED DURING

ASSESSMENT:

Throughout the assessment process, safeguards protect the rights of handicapped

individuals and their parents or guardians. Parents must be notified when a student is

referred for assessment; they must receive information about their rights; and their

informed consent is necessary before assessment begins. No student may be placed in

special education without a comprehensive assessment that includes evaluation of his

or her educational needs.

In answering the assessment questions about the eligibility of mildly handicapped

students, generally assessed areas include school achievement, intellectual

performance and adaptive behavior, specific learning abilities and strategies, and

classroom behavior. In Part II we suggest skills to be tested, mention the major issues

and trends involved in such assessments, and provide a current perspective of

practices. Of particular interest should be a description of the sources of information

(for example, school records, the student, teachers and parents) and how to gather the

data.

Several widely used tests are described fully: parts of the test, the appropriate student

population, types of scores obtained, known quality of the test, and how to interpret

the results to answer assessment questions are all covered. Suggestions from practical


9/21

experience will prepare you for potential difficulties, and examples will show you

how to score and interpret the test.

SPECIFIC LEARNING ABILITIES AND

STRATEGIES:

Specific learning abilities and strategies are one of the assessment teams major

concerns in considering a students eligibility for special education services. Students

may show school performance problems despite average intellectual performance;

one reason for this may be deficits in specific learning abilities. Such students are

usually identified as learning disabled. Individuals with other handicaps may also

experience difficulty in certain learning abilities and strategies. For example,

attentional problems re often associated with students identified as behavior

disordered.

In planning a students assessment, the special education team poses several questions

about handicapping conditions. The major concern is this: Is the school performance

problem related to a handicapping condition? Usually assessment begins with study of

the students current school performance and general aptitude for learning. Then the

team continues by investigating other domains, including specific learning abilities.

Vision and hearing are important considerations for all students, including those with

possible deficits in specific learning abilities. Screening for vision and hearing

problems is routinely conducted in schools. The results of screening procedures


10/21

should be reviewed when students are referred for special education assessment.

Although vision and hearing are not considered specific learning abilities, they are

closely related.

CONSIDERATIONS IN ASSESSMENT OF

SPECIFIC LEARNING ABILITIES:

Specific learning abilities refer to an individuals capacity to successfully participate

in certain aspects of the learning task or in certain types of learning. Among the

specific abilities that interest educators are attention, perception, memory, and the

processes of receiving, associating, and expressing information. Specific abilities are

more circumscribed than general learning aptitude; they usually do not affect all areas

of learning. In young children, the development of specific abilities is often viewed as

a precursor to the acquisition of academic skills. In this context, specific abilities may

be regarded as readiness skills; this type of assessment is described in Chapter 17 on

evaluation in the preschool years. Specific abilities are also concern for older students

who fail to acquire basic academic skills at the expected rate.

PURPOSES:

Learning abilities and strategies are assessed to determine the students strengths and

weaknesses in various types and methods of learning. This information may aid in

planning instructional interventions for any student, and is also important in

determining whether school performance problems are related to the handicapping

condition of learning disabilities.


11/21

1. A severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability must bedocumented. The discrepancy must occur between expected and actual

achievement in at least one of the following skill areas: oral expression,

listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skill, reading

comprehension, mathematics calculation, or mathematics reasoning.

2. The discrepancy must exist despite the provision of appropriate learningexperiences. Underachievement cannot be simply due to lack of instruction.

3. The discrepancy cannot be the result of other handicaps or conditions.Excluded from consideration are learning problems due primarily to visual,

hearing, or motor handicaps; mental retardation; emotional disturbance; and

environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT SPECIFIC

LEARNING ABILITIES:

There are several sources of information about students specific learning abilities,

learning strategies, and study skills. School records, teachers, parents, and the students

themselves are all able to make important contributions.

SCHOOL RECORDS:

School records may provide some clues to a students past or current levels of

functioning. Of particular importance are records of results of periodic vision and

hearing screenings.


12/21

READINESS TEST RESULTS:

Results of group tests of school readiness may be available for some students.

Readiness measures are usually administered at the end of kindergarten or at the

beginning of first grade, so results are most meaningful for first and second graders.

RESULTS OF VISION AND HEARING

SCREENING:

The team should review the students health record to determine the dates and results

of vision and hearing screenings. If possible problems were indicated, the team should

check to see if the student was referred for further assessment and what the results

were. Were recommended treatments carried out? For example, if corrective lenses

were prescribed, were eyeglasses or contact lenses purchased and does the student

wear them as directed? If there is no record of recent vision and hearing checks, the

team should arrange for these as soon as possible.

INFORMATION ABOUT APTITUDE-

ACHIEVEMENT DISCREPANCIES:

There may be some information in the school records that points to discrepancies

between the students aptitude for learning and actual achievement. For example, past

teachers may have commented about the students failure to achieve to capacity. Or

the school record may contain results of group achievement and intelligence tests


13/21


14/21

discussions, or independent work periods. Interviewing is another technique. Students

can be asked to describe the study methods they use in school and at home. They can

also be interviewed while engaged in a learning task. In addition, samples of the

students work may provide clues about poor work habits or inefficient study

strategies.

TEACHERS:

Teachers have many opportunities to observe the specific learning abilities, strategies,

and study skills of students in their classroom.

CURRENT ABILITIES AND STRATEGIES FOR

LEARNING:

Teachers can describe how students go about learning new skills and information. In

particular, teachers should be asked to discuss any learning problems the student

exhibits. For example, does the student have difficulty paying attention to relevant

aspects of the task at hand? Is he or she unable to remember previously learned

material? Teachers can also report about students current study skills. Does the

student listen to directions and ask questions when necessary? Is he or she able to

follow directions?


15/21

CURRENT APTITUDE-ACHIEVEMENT

DISCREPANCIES:

Teachers may be able to comment about the match between the achievement expected

of a particular student and that students current performance. For instance, a teacher

may observe that a student appears to understand the course material in class

discussions but performs poorly on written examinations, Such observations are

important indicators of aptitude-achievement discrepancies.

PARENTS:

Like teachers, parents have many opportunities to observe their child in learning

situations. Parents also have information about their childs current health status and

medical history in relation to vision and hearing problems.

HISTORY OF TREATMENT FOR VISION AND

HEARING PROBLEMS:

If school records do not contain information about the students vision and hearing,

parents may be able to supply this. If routine vision or hearing checks at school or by

the family physician indicated possible problems, the students parents can describe

what treatments, if any, were recommended and carried out. If necessary parents can

refer school personnel to the appropriate medical professional for more information.


16/21

HOME OBSERVATIONS OF CURRENT

LEARNING ABILITIES AND STRATEGIES:

Based upon their observations of their child in many learning situations, parents can

describe typical strategies for learning and recurrent problems. They may comment,

for example, on their childs attention span, perseverance in problem solving, or ways

of remembering things. Parents can also describe the Study strategies used at home to

complete class ass

SCREENING FOR SENSORY IMPAIRMENTS:

A first priority in the assessment of any student referred for school performance

problems is determine current status in vision and hearing. Undetected and untreated

sensory impairments can interfere with school learning. Sensory acuity in hearing and

vision is the concern in screening. Acuity refers to the ability of the sense organ to

register stimuli. Sensory screening programs identity students in need of in-depth

assessment. These persons are then referred to appropriate health professionals for a

comprehensive examination.

VISION:

Vision can be impaired in many ways. Students may have difficulty seeing objects at

a distance In this condition, known as nearsightedness or myopia, near vision is

clearer than far vision. Far sightedness or hyperopia is the opposite; vision is clearer

for far distance objects. A third type of disorder, astigmatism, is a condition in which


17/21

vision is blurred or distorted. Myopia, hyperopia, and ac astigmatism are considered

refractive disorder. They are very common among school-aged children but are

usually correctable with eyeglasses or contact lenses (Caton, 1985). When a vision

problem can be corrected, it is not considered a disability. Other types of vision

problems are muscle disorders, restricted peripheral vision, and impairments in color

vision. Muscle disorders involve the external muscles that control the eye movement

An example is strabismus or crossed eyes in which a muscle imbalance prevents the

eyes from focusing simultaneously on the same object. Peripheral or side vision

refers to the wideness of the visual field. If peripheral vision is severely impaired, the

visual field is limited so the individual only sees objects directly in front of him or

her; this condition is known as tunnel vision. Tunre vision, if uncorrected, is

considered a severe enough handicap to be included as a type of legal blindness.

Disorders can also occur in color vision reducing the ability to distinguish between

colors. Although color blindness is not considered a disability, it can have a

deleterious effect upon some aspects of school performance. Teachers must know

when they have color-blind students so colorcued materials and other educational uses

of color can be minimized.

HEARING:

The two primary types of hearing loss are conductive and sensorineural. With

conductive losses, some obstruction or interference in the outer or middle ear blocks

the transmission of sound. The inner ear is intact, but sound does not reach it. Among

school-aged children, conductive losses are the most common type of hearing

impairments (Frank, 1985). They may be caused by excessive buildup of wax in the


18/21

auditory canal or collection of fluid in the middle ear (serous otitis media). Many

conductive losses can be corrected by medcal or surgical treatment (Heward &

Orlansky, 1984). For example, fluid in the middle ear can be treated with a surgical

procedure called a myringotomy in which small tubes are placed in the ear drum to

allow drainage (Frank, 1985). Hearing aids usually benefit individuals with

conductive losses.

Sensorineural losses are caused by damage to the inner ear. Sound travels to the inner

ear but is not transmitted to the brain. Sensorineural hearing losses are not as

responsive to medical and surgical treatment as conductive hearing losses (Heward &

Orlanski 1984), although hearing aids that amplify sounds may prove beneficial.

Individuals can also show a mixed hearing loss, both a conductive and a sensorineural

hearing loss.

Hearing screening, like vision screening, is routine in most schools today. However,

teachers and parents should also be aware of some hearing loss symptoms, so that

they ca initiate hearing checks for students with possible problems.

ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING STRATEGIES:

Within the last few years, the emphasis in assessment has shifted from the study of

isolated specific abilities to consideration of learning strategies. Learning strategies

are the methods students employ when faced with a learning task. This change is due

in part to the criticism leveled against traditional specific ability assessments and


19/21

treatment programs. It is also due to current research findings about the nature of

learning disabilities.

RESEARCH FINDINGS:

Results of recent research indicate that many students with learning disabilities are

characterized by inefficient and ineffective strategies for learning (Lewis, 1983). This

finding has been reported in relation to the specific learning abilities of both attention

and memory. Hallahan and Reeve (1980). in their summary of research on selective

attention, conclude:

At this time, it appears that the most parsimonious explanation for the learning

disabled childs tendency to have problems in attending to relevant cues and ignoring

irrelevant cues is his inability to bring to the task a specific learning strategy. (p. 156)

Research on memory supports this (Torgesen, 1980). Learning disabled students tend

to recall less information than nonhandicapped students. They approach the learning

task differently and are less likely to engage in active rehearsal during the study

period.

APPROACHES TO ASSESSMENT:

Although progress has been made in the development of instructional models, the

assessment of learning strategies has received little attention. At present, professionals

must rely upon informal measures. Specific ability tests do not provide sufficient


20/21

information because they measure abilities in isolation rather than in the context of

actual learning tasks. More pertinent data are produced by observations, work sample

analyses, student questionnaires and interviews, and teacher interviews.

Suggestions for the design of informal tools for the assessment of learning strategies

are available in the study skills literature. However, study skills are not the same as

learning strategies. The term learning strategy is usually reserved for the general

cognitive strategies that students apply to tasks where learning is expected: strategies

for the deployment of attention, for the rehearsal of skills and information to be

learned, for generating and evaluating solutions to problems, and so forth. In contrast,

study skills are more closely tied to specific school tasks and often require at least

rudimentary proficiency in reading and writing. Despite these differences, both

learning strategies and study skills are concerned with the students use of specific

abilities. Evaluation of study habits can provide some insight into the ways the student

interacts with the learning task.

STRATEGIES FOR ASSESSING ARTICULATION:

Articulation refers to the production of speech sounds or phonemes. There are 44

speech sounds in the English language (Polloway Smith, 1982). Twenty-five are

consonantal sounds such as the initial phonemes in mother and baby. Consonantal

sounds are produced by movements of the articulators (tongue, lips, teeth, palate and

so forth). There are also 19 vocalic sounds (e.g., the initial phonemes in at and open);

when these are produced, the air passes through the mouth without obstruction. Table


21/21

13-2 presents the phonemes in the English language and examples of words

containing these sounds.

Some experts separate vocalic sounds into two categories: vowels and diphthongs.

Diphthongs are made up of a combination of two vowel sounds. Examples are the

medial phonemes in each of these words: paid, time, couch, and boil (Culatta &

Culatta, 1981).

Documents

Assessing Special Students