Suggested Strategy for Developmental Assessment
by Allen N. Smith, Special Assistant to the Associate Commissioner, Head Start Bureau
In deciding how to do developmental assessments of children, programs have several options that run the gamut from informal observation to more formalized systems of developmental assessment that include the use of instruments. Programs also have the option of whether to conduct such as assessment soon after developmental screening or at later times in the program year. Grantees make decisions about what process they will use depending on a variety of factors, such as the knowledge and experience of their staff, the individual and collective developmental needs of their children, the overall goals and design of their curriculum, and the input of parents.

For those programs that decide to use formal instruments for the purpose of developmental assessment, the first point to consider is the difference between developmental screening and developmental assessment instruments. Developmental screening instruments provide a snap shot of a child's current developmental level. They do not provide a comprehensive assessment of child's skills, predict the skills that will emerge with proper stimulation, describe the child's learning style, nor prescribe the specific activities appropriate for the child.

Developmental assessment instruments generally are referred to as criterion referenced or path referenced, which generally provides classroom staff with more descriptive information than simply a score or number.

A norm-refernced instrument is one in which a child's individual performance is compared to that of other similar children, such as those from an instrument's standardization sample.

A criterion-referenced or path-referenced instrument is typically more developmental in its focus. In other words, such an instrument will assess a child's skill level in a number of different areas, and then allow the teacher or Head Start staff to look more closely at what skills should be developed next.

Some of these instruments are formal assessment devices used to measure child skills because they quickly can provide teachers with developmental levels across a wide sampling of different skills. As such, they are very suitable for initial program planning. Other instruments use a checklist approach for recording teacher observations as children demonstrate skills over the course of the program year and, consequently, are more suitable for monitoring developmental progress or developmental assessment than for initial class room planning.
Instruments, whether used for developmental screening, or developmental assessment, differ widely in their validity, reliability, cultural bias, and standardization samples.

For example, observer checklists are generally less reliable than tests because they depend on the ability of observers for accurate interpretations of child behaviors. Also, some tests are more valid than others for measuring developmentally sequenced skills or for reflecting skills actually acquired in Head Start classrooms. A useful publication that examines different tests is the Mental Measurements Yearbook. (Published annually. Editors Jack J. Kramer and Jane Close Conoley, Buros Institute of Mental Measurements, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE 1992)

Programs should become familiar with all the technical jargon used by publishers so they can choose the right instrument. They should be careful when examining all the claims made by the instrument publishers. Programs must distinguish between claims that, for example, offer developmental sequencing based merely on armchair speculation. Two of the most commonly used indicators of worth are reliability and validity.

Reliability is the dependability, stability, consistency, and accuracy of the assessment instrument and is reported as a coefficient (or number) with 1.00 being the highest and 0.00 being the lowest. Therefore, an instrument is reliable if it provides the same information at two different points in time. The higher the reliability of the instrument, the more confidence programs will have that a child's score is a true indicator of actual developmental level. On the other hand, the lower the reliability of the instrument, the more of the child's score or ratings will be affected by the way the test or observation instrument was constructed, such as the use of vague words, the inclusion of too few items, and/or confusing instruction, than by the child's real ability. A coefficient of at least 0.80 generally is considered to be acceptable.

Validity is generally defined as the degree to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure. For example, a test that is designed to measure a child's expressive language skills but contains mostly receptive language skills items is not a valid test. While it may have high reliability and provide teachers with an accurate reflection of a child's receptive language skills,it does not measure what it proposed to measure.

Test manuals that report a test has high reliability and validity but do not provide specific data or results should be further investigated before a decision is made on whether or not to use the instrument.

Standardized sample. When designing an instrument, the creators of that instrument must standardize it with a large group of children to make sure that the instrument is both reliable and valid. This involves using the measure with large numbers of children. It is important of Head Start staff to look at the characteristics of this standardization sample of children attending their program. For example, did the standardization sample contain an ethnically mixed group of children? Where were the children from? Were they primarily from middle-income families? Were they children who were attending preschool programs similar to Head Start? All of these questions are important to consider when choosing an instrument because, if the standardization sample was quite different from a Head Start? All of these questions are important to consider when choosing an instrument because, if the standardization sample was quite different from a Head Start program's own group of children, then that particular instrument may not be a good choice.

Research has proven that the quality, accuracy, and timeliness of information that teachers obtain on children's current developmental levels influence the growth of the children. Findings indicate that social competence development in children is positively affected by the amount of knowledge teachers have about eh children's skills. Teachers who have accurate information about a child's developmental level will have greater impact on that child's achievement than teachers who are not as well informed.

There fore another important consideration in making decisions about using instruments for developmental assessment is which children to administer it to and when. Some programs will make the choice to use the instrument for all children early in the school year in addition to the developmental screening as a basis for better individualizing activities for children. Other programs may decide to use this kind of approach for children who were referred for an in depth assessment but for whom an IEP was determined to be unnecessary.

For those programs that choose to use an instrument to help establish baseline information for all children early in the school year, teachers can have additional information on targeting realistic educational goals for each child individually and for the class as a whole. Information that is available during the beginning of the year helps make it possible to establish the right climate as well as provide more time for learning. Further more, a teacher who has a clear and accurate understanding of the activities that will be stimulating and challenging to the child will be able to avoid the pitfalls of selecting activities at developmental levels too far above or too far below the current level of functioning of the child.

Programs also should monitor the development progress of children over the program year using the same assessment instruments where possible or less structured observation checklists that can reliably reflect classroom skills and behavior. This will let staff know whether the goals they had set for each child, or for subgroups of children, were realistic. It also will let teachers know which activities worked and which didn't work and how they should revise their educational plans. These insights will prove valuable references for future planning decisions with subsequent groups of Head Start children.

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