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Assessment Final Amy Martinez ECE 354: Assessment and Intervention During Early Childhood Ashford University
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Assessment Final For the purpose of this paper we will compare and contrast two different tests used to assess infants and young children; The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment and The Brigance Diagnostic Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills. Throughout this paper, we will discuss the specifics of each test, including purpose, age ranges, descriptions, standardization information, as well as validity and reliability. We will also address the advantages and disadvantages of using each of these tests in an early childhood setting, their value, and what strategies to use in order to develop a relationship with the parents. The first test we will discuss is the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA), which is a strength-based system designed to promote resilience in children ages 2 to 5 years (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). The primary goal of DECA is to identify and build young children’s protective factors and thereby increase their resilience (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). In other words, this is primarily a preventitive program that is designed to identify those children who are at-risk for abnormal social and emotional development, and put strategies into place to help support teachers, families, and communities in an effort to reduce the risk factors that hinder healthy social and emotional well being. The centerpiece of the program is a standardized, norm-referenced behavior rating scale, which basically means that this test provides information on how the performance of an individual compares with that of others in a norm group (Wortham, 2012). A nationwide sample of around 2000 students were used to establish standards for this assessment (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). This program evaluates the frequencey of 27 positive
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behaviors related to attachment, self-control and initiative. As mentioned earlier, this is a strengths-based test, meaning that it is looking for strengths in these areas. The program also includes a ten item Behavioral Concerns Screener (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995), which measures a variety of challenging behaviors as well. Beyond identifying potential at-risk students, this assessment program also provides intervention strategies on three distinct levels: Universal or classroom wide interventions, Targeted interventions for at-risk individuals, and Expanded interventions for those referred individuals who are identified as needing additonal expertise (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). There are five steps involved in administering this assessment program, the first step is to collect information (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). This is done before any child is administered any formal testing. The type of information that is collected is to identify current program practices for the entire school or early childhood setting, as well as specific information on individual children in the program. This step uses five reflective checklists that cover information needed about the environment, activities and experiences, supportive interactions, partnerships with the parents, and daily program procedures (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). Once these checklists are completed by the teachers, they then have four weeks to get to know each child and collect information about their health and developmental history, culture, family, home language, skills, needs, strengths, likes and so forth. The second step of the program is completed by both the teachers and parents. This is where actual tests are given to students as a group and individually by teachers, while parents are asked to complete home surveys and checklists that are included in testing results to supply a
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more comprehensive picture (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). Teachers take the information from the first step, along with the test results and observations from step two and plug them into a web-based computer scoring program that produces detailed results in both writen and graph form. The third step consists of teachers meeting with parents to discuss test results, intervention strategies and create Individual Profiles for students who may need them (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). This step is crucial for the testing program to be effective because parents have to understand what the results mean and what specific strategies they can employ at home to help their children improve in areas needing focus. If teachers do not fully understand how to read the results of the test then they cannot thoroughly explain them to the parents. The teacher-parent relationship is important because without their support, the efforts of the teachers during instructional time cannot be as successful as it is with their support at home. That brings us to the fourth step, which is to implement intervention strategies needed. This program is unique in that it does provide a wide variety of intervention strategies for both the educational setting and home environament. The teachers can put into place universal strategies that can help support their classroom community as a whole, but they can build in support for individuals by helping parents implement specific strategies at home as well (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). The final step of this program is to continue to monitor progress over time. The actual testing done in step two gave teachers and parents a snapshot at what was going on at that specific time, but to create a well balanced assessment program it included a means for teachers to continue to evaluate and report on progress after initial testing (Devereux Early Childhood
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Assessment Program, 1995). This is an important step primarily for those students who may need targeted or expnaded intervention to ensure that the strategeis used are appropriate and effective. DECA is a highly reliable insturment, meaning that when it comes to accuracy in measuremtn, this test is free from a lot of error (Wortham, 2012). Each of the alpha coefficients for the protective factor scales meets or exceeds the .80 “desirable standard” (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). The alpha coefficient for the Behavioral Concerns Scale is a little lower with the parents surveys scoring between .55 and .80, and the teacher surveys scoring inbetween .87 and .94. That means that the overall reliability of the DECA is .55 to .94 (Early Learning Standards Task Force and Kindergarten Assessment Work Group, 2005). The criterion validity of the DECA was established by examining its ability to correctly predict whether an individual child was part of a clinical or matched non-referred sample (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). The validity of this test has been showen to predict academic success in primary grades using this method, with 69% accurately classified (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program, 1995). In my opinion, this test does have some value in an early childhood setting when it comes to early childhood programs set in communities where risk factors for social and emotional hinderance are prelevant. What I mean by this is that in areas where you see low socioeconomic status, you often also experience family violence, abuse and neglect which are all cited as risk factors for poor social and emotional health according to this assessment program. So for those areas I think this assessment program is very valuable and has advantages for those that can benefit form added focus in this area.
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That is not to say that communities that have higher socioeconomic status do not experience some of the same risk factors, these risk factors can be experienced everywhere, however, for a community that does not experience these factors as often, this assessment program may not be as valuable as a whole. In communities that rarley experience these risk factors, they may want to consider using an assessment program that only assesses those children who are referred for assessment in that area instead of testing an entire class or program. That is one of the disadvantages of this assessment program in my opinion. For the work put into this assessment program, it only targets the one area of social and emotional health and development, which may not be appropriate for an entire class or educational program. There is one part of this assessment program, DECA, that I think is done very well and that is the partnership set up between parents and teachers. This program encourages partnerships by jointly collecting data and reviewing results, as well as collaborating on decisions about intervention strategies. If I were to create an assessment program that includes parent involvement, this is exactly the way I would do it. I would make sure to include parents in the beginning by communicating the upcoming assessments that will take place, their purpose and to what extent the parents will be involved. This type of partnership would require teacher and parents to communicat and meet on a regular basis to ensure the appropriate data is collected and testing completed for optimal results. The second test we will discuss is the Brigance Diagnostic Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills (CIBS), which is a very extensive diagnostic tool used to determine the academic strengths and needs of individual students (Bradley-‐Johnson, 1999). Unlike DECA, this test assesses a wide range of academic areas with a variety of methods, so for that reason, it cannot be administered to an individual student in it’s entirety. This test also
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incorporates a wide age range for students to be tested with versions that test children ages 0 to 5.5 years, and other versions that test children ages 5 to 13 years (Bradley-‐ Johnson, 1999). So whereas DECA was very specific in it’s scope, CIBS is very broad. This test measures readiness, strengths and needs in academic areas that include speech, reading, writing, math and science (Bradley-‐Johnson, 1999). And within each of these academic areas, there are subgroups of areas that can be assessed as well. These academic areas are assessed so that children needing intervention in a specific area can obtain the appropriate intervention early in an effort to promote academic success in later age and grade levels. As we discussed earlier in this paper, DECA is a very specific test that gave very specific instructions for how it was to be administered and used, however, CIBS is not as specific in how it can be used and administered. The first step, obviously, is to identify the skill areas that need to be assessed since the entire assessment program is too extensive to administer to an individual student. It is set up this way on purpose because this test is not meant to be administered to a group of students at a time, it is designed to be administered on an individual basis for specific diagnostic needs. So, for this test, teachers have to decide which assessments are the most relevant to the immediate concerns or reasons for referral. Next, teachers have to identify the most appropriate skill level within the sequence for initiating the assessment. This would require the teacher to review student data available to determine appropriate level of ability. This test is set up so that once testing starts, if a student is showing that they are performing above the ability level chosen, the teacher can adjust up to the next level without having to stop the test. It can also be
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adjusted down to an easier level if the test level chosen turns out to be too difficult for the student. DECA does not allow for such flexibility and individualization. Another difference between DECA and CIBS that may have been noticed is that CIBS does not include the collection of initial data in the beginning as one of the program steps. The reason for that is because this test is meant to be used on a referral basis only and not given as an overall preventative measure like DECA. For CIBS, the last step that needs to be determined before the tests can be administered is what method to use. This test is all about choices, and that does not stop at the method used to test. CIBS gives a variety of method options such as parent interviews, teacher observations, and even informal evaluation of everyday performance and assignment work to name a few. This is important because from the very beginning this test has given teachers the ability to customize this test to fit the specific purpose of the referral, so the method of administration also has to be flexible to fit the intended purpose. Once testing data has been collected, it has to be organized in a way that is easy for teachers to use and parents to understand. To achieve this, CIBS uses a single Student Record Book to track results. Within this book, teachers have the option of using a color-‐ coding system or graphs to demonstrate results in a visually organized way that is easy for parents to understand. CIBS does not really focus on parent involvement until this step in the testing process. It assumes that parents are aware of the need of the referral to begin with and therefore are already a participating member of the assessment process. This, however, does not mean that partnering with the parent throughout the assessment process is not as necessary for the CIBS as it is for DECA. Partnering with parents during
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assessment is always essential because appropriate intervention requires parental support as discussed earlier. CIBS is both a criterion-‐referenced and norm-‐referenced standardized test with a reliability rating of .70 and .99 (Early Learning Standards Task Force and Kindergarten Assessment Work Group, 2005). The norm sample for this test is nationally diverse, although cultural sensitivity is not specified. The assessments in CIBS are based on curriculum content and objectives, so the results can be applied directly to planning and individualizing instruction. Comparing results of the CIBS with the results of various individually administered and group administered achievement tests provided evidence of concurrent validity. For the most part, moderate to high correlations were found (Bradley-‐Johnson, 1999). The advantages of this test are obviously its flexibility in that it can assess a wide range of academic areas, on a variety of levels, and through a variety of methods. This makes this test extremely adaptive to the specific purpose it is needed to fulfill. This is something that the DECA does not offer. The disadvantage to using the CIBS is that it is better suited for children ages 5 to 13 years and does not include areas of assessment such as social and emotional development like DECA does. This means that CIBS, although very flexible in its use, is not ideal for the early childhood setting. There are a lot of assessments out there for infants and young children; however, you have to really take into consideration what the purpose of testing is so that the appropriate test can be chosen. If the test does not serve to benefit the child then it is not appropriate as an assessment tool. These two tests, DECA and CIBS are both proven tests
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that are designed for specific purposes and uses, therefore they are valuable for their targeted demographic.
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References Bradley-‐Johnson, S. (1999). Brigance Diagnostic Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills:
Test Review. Psychology in the Schools , 36 (6).
Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program. (1995). Enhancing Social and Emotional
Development . Lewisville: Kaplan Early Learning Co.
Early Learning Standards Task Force and Kindergarten Assessment Work Group. (2005).
Early Childhood Assessment for Children from Birth to Age 8. Harrisburg:
Pennsylvania's Departments of Education and Public Welfare.
Wortham, S. C. (2012). Assessment in early childhood education (6th Edition ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.