Adam has not had a formal assessment with testing at school in 3 years, and since he is going to be going to 7th grade at a new school, we are working on his transition IEP. I am asking for him to have an education assessment. Are there sepcific tests I should be asking for?
Thanks.
It depends what you want to know about. If you want to know about academics, there are certain tests I recommend for certain kids, if you want to know about functional skills, different tests, and social skills, still different tests. All of the tests I am listing depend upon individual student needs. If your child has good problem solving skills, you would not choose the test of problem solving, etc. Here is what our 3 year re-evals look like usually:
Academic: Woodcock Johnson III-R OR OWLS (Oral and Written Language Scales) and Key Math. None of these are excellent tests, but they can give you an idea of academic progress. OWLS has an oral component that can be administered by the Speech therapist to give a more thorough overall look at oral and written language.
Speech and Language: Tests of Pragmatic Language, Test of Problem Solving, The Listening Test
Adaptive/ Functional: Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales
Intellectual: Usually the WISC (Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children) or a nonverbal IQ test, or both. Usually we only do this if IQ has not been done before, or if the results were not likely accurate the last time.
Sensory/ Motor/ Health: Developmental Health History, Vision and Hearing Screening, current weight and growth, Test of Visual Motor Integration, The Sensory Profile, Possible testing for adaptive phy ed
Social Emotional Behavior: BASC (Behavior Assessment Scale for Children) ADOS, ASDS, GARS, or GADS for autism but these are not usually repeated if they were done in an earlier assessment, Dyssemia Rating Scale, 2 Observations on 2 different days in 2 different settings, Social Skills Rating Inventory, Informal Social Interview
Umm, that is all I can think of off the top of my head. What is it you are interested most in finding out?
Not all test publishers give age or grade equivalents, I've been told. The really important thing is to get the testers to explain the scores to you and ask for the scores to all be expressed in the same way. For me, percentiles work best. That system of scoring is easily understandable to me. In From Emotions to Advocacy, Pete Wright suggests that you ask the evaluators to translate the scores into standard scores, percentiles, age equivalents, grade equivalents and also give you the raw scores. The point is that you want to compare apples to apples. Sometimes kids are given tests that are NOT normed for their age group. ASK if a particular test is normed for your son's age group. If it's not, it can't be considered a valid test for him, even if it a valuable test for him. If that test is valuable, let them give it but ask them to give another test for that area of development that IS normed for his age group. At a Trienniel Review, ask for an IQ test (one that's appropriate for your child's language development or lack thereof), an Adaptive test (like the Vineland), academic standardized testing in at least reading and math. You need to get an idea of reading decoding, comprehension, fluency, spelling. Of course, include a speech test, too. If you have concerns about your child's physical development, ask for an OT and PT eval. If behavior is an issue, ask for an FBA.To add to Tzoya's posts, norm groups also apply to ethnicity, income groups, even some disability groups. There are NO tests (for academic achievement) that I know of that have been normed for autism. A person could then suggest that these tests are all invalid for kids with ASD, but testing can provide some useful information. It is important to take all test results with a grain of salt.
We want our kids' scores to be normed to the NT kids. That is whom they will be competing in this world with. The point is, though, that some tests are not meant to be used with kids beyond a certain age and that the results of those tests will not stand up in a Hearing, should it ever come to that. Insist that the tests that are used on your child be VALID tests for that child. The end result needs to show how your child is progressing based on the standards that are set for ALL kids because NCLB (which applies to disabled kids, too) says that ALL kids will achieve ALL standards by 2014 (I believe that is the year). Of course, that is not 100% realistic, but it IS the goal and we parents have the legal right to demand that our children show progress toward the same goals set for NT kids. That is what the reauthorization of IDEA says. We don't WANT to know how they're doing versus other autistic kids but how they are doing versus their non-disabled peers, since that is the standard they will be judged on. In school and in life.The school is winding up the 3 year re-eval with my son (I've mentioned it on other threads); I've received a copy of the psych/educational eval that I'd like to ask opinions on.
Tony is 12 and in the 6th grade. The psychologist used the Woodcock-Johnson Test of Achievement-III for the educational assesment and the WISC-IV for the psychological assessment. The Adaptive Behavior Assessment was not included in the written report as the report was dated 2/2/07 and I was not given the parent questionnaire until 2/8/07 (which I completed and returned to the school on 2/9).
How can I find out if these are appropriate for his age? Or if there are better testing tools out there that I can reasonably ask for? He does not have an ongoing relationship with a psychologist/psychiatrist privately.
Mary
All of those tests go through adulthood. There is calculus on the WJ3, and the administration of that test is the basal/ceiling type. Vineland questions (if that was the adaptive behavior assessment), as you know, go through managing own money, banking, etc. The tests are appropriate for a 12 year old.
If you want more info about SLP tests, you could look at the Linguisystems' web site. They sell SLP tests and so they have a description of each test that they sell. You can also search by age, and what you wish to test, and then see what they recommend. Only problem is that I do not know how accurate the descriptions are. They sound quoted from the test manfacturer's literature. Here's a URL:FYI -- Regarding what the law has to say about using tests that are not normed for a specific group (from a post on an advocacy site):
"(b) Evaluation procedures. A recipient to which this subpart applies shall establish standards and procedures for the evaluation and placement of persons who, because of handicap, need or are believed to need special education or related services which ensure that:
(1) Tests and other evaluation materials have been validated for the specific purpose for which they are used and are administered by trained personnel in conformance with the instructions provided by their producer;"
I would like to know about both academics and functioning. Mostly though it is functioning I am concerned about as he progressing to middle schoo/high school. I am afraid that his functioning is not at a level that will allow him to be mainstreamed for the entire day. He will automatically have guided study hall in the spec ed room. But, it appears they want to mainstream him for all classes with support. He currently is mainstreamed and goes to the spec ed room for help with math/spelling and reading. He also has social skills group with the SPL.
He has never had a formal pragmatic speech test, so I know I want them to do that. They did kind of a short overview during the last IEP, but didn't do the entire test. He did have an IQ test when he was first dx'd by the neuropsych. I don't think he ever had an ADOS, GARS or GADS. I have to go back and look at the original testing he had done. I guess I didn't realize the school would do these.
Thanks for your help.
There is a test of pragmatic language... but the problem with the test is that it is too simple to identify pragmatic language problems in people who have a problem, but not a super severe problem. In other words, we often do not give this test because if falsely gives the impression that the child does not have any needs in this area, when we see those needs every day.
It sounds to me that in this assessment, it would be good to identify any needs in social understanding (naivete), self advocacy, self regulation, and organization/ functional skills.
Can your son relate a basic telephone message? Look at basic self help/ functioning skills that most 6th graders can do, and ask yourself honestly if your son can do these. If the answer is no- try to ask for tests that will identify this need.
The ASDS/GARS/ GADS, etc. as well as the dyssemia and observations can help identify social deficits and help with programming for social skills.
I was told by my oldest ds 's school that they do not do age equivelent scores anymore because he's older is this right?Scoring protocols vary from test to test. There are certainly plenty of tests that can be scored to show an "age equivalency". Teachers in my district have been advised NOT to report these scores to parents because they create focus on an age level, rather than on strengths and needs. It is more likely that your son's school does not report these scores in an effort to use current best practices in score reporting.