{"id":6879,"date":"2017-10-01T02:29:21","date_gmt":"2017-10-01T02:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poac.net\/?p=6879"},"modified":"2024-02-26T07:40:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-26T12:40:21","slug":"accurate-assessment","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.poac.net\/blog\/accurate-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"An Accurate Assessment Is the Foundation of Your Child\u2019s Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Whether it is your child\u2019s first IEP or their last, you need an accurate assessment to develop IEP goals. Some of us may think that since the school districts have been doing this for years, they know the right tools to use. That may be true. But assessments for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have just not been available for all that long. The Child Study Teams are often challenged with traditional standardized assessments when applying them to children with ASD. This is why you may see \u201cuntestable,\u201d \u201cunable to complete,\u201d or \u201cwith modifications\u201d when the results are presented.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n

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What information\u00a0DOES<\/em>\u00a0an assessment provide you?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Standardized assessments that provide percentile scores of where your child falls in comparison to his\/her typical peers are routinely performed. These are usually used to let you know that your child is not like everyone else, and therefore qualifies for special education services. Rarely, however, do they let you know what skills your child needs to put in that IEP.\u00a0 Sometimes new parents are asked, \u201cYou know your child best. What do you want them to work on?\u201d\u00a0 That question can be quite challenging and stressful for any parent, especially if this is your first child and you have no basis for comparison. What they should be doing? You can feel like you are at a loss.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve had children before this one, you might ask to have them do the same things as their siblings, but that\u2019s not good. Maybe they\u2019re not ready and that\u2019s why we\u2019re here.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n

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Sometimes these standardized assessments go unfinished due to behavior challenges, or your child just was not able to perform their best under the conditions of being with a new evaluator or environment. What you need is an assessment that tells you what your child can do now. You want to know what the gaps are in their learning, what they need to know to be age-appropriate, and what we need to work on to get them there. Gould, Dixon, Najdowski, Smith, & Tarbox (2011) took some of the guesswork out of this task for us when they compared several assessments for\u00a0young children with ASD.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n

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What information\u00a0SHOULD<\/em>\u00a0an assessment provide you?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Gould et al.,(2011) gave us the \u201cCritical Components\u201d that any assessment should have.\u00a0 These include:<\/p>\n