Rex Yuxiang Zhu Sped 414 Screening Assignment Introduction of the child: Robert is born on April 25th, 2009.

The screening assignment is done on September 24th, 2013. Therefore, Roberts test age is 4 years, 4 months, and 29 days, which is rounded up to 4 years and 5 months. Robert is a quiet boy who enjoys playing with blocks and Legos. He is relatively not talkative comparing to other boys in the class. However, his facial expressions are very expressive, which helped me get to know him better. According to my cooperating teacher, although Robert is able to write down letters separately, he still has a tough time managing word sequence and spacing (which means he writes fragmentally all over the paper). Roberts mother is also a teacher who teaches pre-schools. She is very understanding and cooperative when I asked if Robert may participate in the screening assessment.

Assessments description: Visual-Motor/Adaptive: When being asked to build a tower with nine blocks. Robert reacted quickly and finished task almost effortlessly. Although the tower is not entirely straight up, but he managed to keep the towers balance while building it. His eyes were following his hands movement during the building, and he was smiling. The similar process happened during the bridge building, too. Robert was able to finish this task quickly as well. However, the gate building task turned out to be a little bit different. After

my instructions, Robert started to build his gate quite confidently. Again, he finished quickly. When I observe his work, I noticed that the middle block of the gate was put flat on the two base blocks instead of the intended form. I asked Robert, Is that just like the one I made? Without looking at his gate, Robert nodded and said, Yes. My guess is that although Roberts skill of manipulating small blocks are developed properly, he might not be as observant. During the copy forms test, one of the major problem I encountered was the overlapping drawings. Although Robert was able to imitate lines and copy shapes that I showed him, he tend to draw on the top of each drawings. Relating to my cooperating teachers comment, I would assume that Robert has developed age appropriate drawing skills, yet the spacing recognition is lacking. Nevertheless, he still scored full credits on this portion. Draw a person test was a hard one for me to score. Based on Roberts drawing, I found it hard to recognize any significant body part. However, I did hear Robert describing his work while drawing: I need eyes a head arm here Because of his spontaneous descriptions on his drawing, I decided to give him one point. The Visual sequential memory test was no challenge at all for Robert. He managed to complete this task with minimal help. I suppose his vision and memory are developed properly. Language and cognition: The major problem I encountered in this part was the verbal expression, which

will be discussed in my critique portion of the paper. Other than that, Robert did an exceptionally good job on the test. I would assume that his language and cognition development is age appropriate. Gross motor: Overall Roberts gross motor skills are developed properly. He did stepped off the line once during the walk on the line test, but I would not list that as a major concern. My guess is that he was just not paying enough attention to the task.

Critique of the screening process and instrument: Overall I think the ESI test is a good screening tool. One of the main concern I had, as I mentioned before, was the verbal expression test. Since many of students were interested in what I was doing with Robert that day, I ended up screening four children (two of them just partially, but all of them did the verbal expression test. No data recorded for children without a consent form). None of them responded spontaneously to the question Now I have some things that I want you to tell me about. In fact, I got most of my answers by asking elicit questions. It seemed like my students cannot understand my first question entirely. I am not sure whether this question is designed in order to get spontaneous responses or not. I would say Tell me all about this is a rather vague question. I can imagine myself responding Excuse me? if I am asked the same question. Also, since this is a relatively long test. I noticed Robert become unfocused, and I decided to let him take a 10-minute-break before section III. Since the test never

mentioned anything about breaks, I wonder if it is reasonable to let young children to stretch a little. In my opinion, it is quite hard for them to concentrate on one task for over 20 minutes.

Critique of my performance as an examiner: The most important thing that I want to improve is to get more familiar with the test. During my first screening with Robert, I was a little nervous and rephrased some of the directions. This was improved when I was doing my screening game with other students. I suppose the more I practice, the more confident and accurate I would become, and my directions would be clearer. Also, when Roberts mother asked which screening assessment am I using. All I knew was its name and we practiced it in class. I think I should become more knowledge when talking to parents/caregivers about the screening device I choose.