Desiree Torres SPED 414 Integrated Assignment 16 December 2013

Part I: Curriculum-Based Assessment (AEPS) Indentifying Information Childs name: Evelyn* DOB: April 16, 2009 Age: 4 Location: Champaign Early Childhood Center Date of Assessment: December 11, 2013 Date of Report: December 13, 2013 Test(s) Used: AEPS, social and adaptive areas Language Used: English Background Information Evelyn educational experience is that she has attended preschool for two years and she receives services through a child development specialist and a language specialist. I received this information from her mother, Hannah, the child development specialist, and both of Evelyns general education teachers. Evelyn has attended two different preschools for the past two years, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. On weekends, Evelyn also goes to a school where she is learning Mandarin. I do not have access to Evelyns birth, medical, or developmental history. Method of Assessment To assess Evelyn, I used the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System. This tool give clear and concise lists of objectives and goals for a child to meet in the areas of: fine motor, gross motor, adaptive, cognitive, social communication, and social. The two developmental areas that I observed and assessed are adaptive and social. Evelyn has autism and as a student teacher in her classroom, I have seen that she struggles forming relationships with her peers and adapting to an environment, after a transition, can be difficult for her. She has shown tremendous growth in both areas, but both still seemed to be areas of need. Results of Assessment

In the Adaptive Area, Evelyn scored an Area Raw Score of 53 out of 70 with an Area Percent Score of 76%. Evelyn is able to serve and feed herself independently. She was able to open packages on her own, and she ate appropriately. She was also able to carry out all toileting functions. I was not able to observe many of the grooming objectives, so those I had to score as zero. Evelyn is able to perform a majority of the dressing objectives independently, and those I scored as zero were also objectives that I was not able to observe. In the Social Area, Evelyn scored an Area Raw Score of 62 out of 94 with an Area Percent Score of 66%. Social Area is where Evelyn seems to struggle the most. She has made incredible growth in it, however. During large and small group activities, she was mostly cooperative and participated well. The areas where I was either unable to observe objectives or she did not show consistency in were interacting with peers and knowing identifying information about herself other than her name and age (reported by her teacher). Some of the identifying objectives were not expected of her, though. Summary From my observation of Evelyn, I would say that her major strengths would be the cognitive and gross motor areas. Evelyn is exceptionally bright, with a large vocabulary. She is above average with her academic skills. Evelyn is also very active and has no trouble with her large motor skills. The biggest area of concern for Evelyn would be the social area. Evelyn struggles to initiate play with other children, and when she is able to initiate play, she has trouble maintaining proximity to the child she initiated play with. Evelyn is a high functioning child with autism, and so she has few areas of concern, and she has been making great progress over this past school year.

Part II: Summary and Critiquing 1. Conclusions about the child: As I mentioned before, Evelyn has made a great deal of progress over this semester. From August to December she is hardly the same child. She has always been advanced in the cognitive area and the gross motor area. When Evelyn is fascinated with a topic, her attention span is very long and she shows off her large vocabulary. Near the beginning of the semester, Evelyn hardly said anything and when she did, she used one or two word phrases. This lack of speech was mentioned as a concern by her mother. Now in December, however, Evelyn is speaking in full sentences, and she speaks often. Another area of progress has been adaptive, while still a little shy, Evelyn used to cling to her caregiver and throw tantrums when she arrived at school and now she willingly leaves her caregiver and is merely shy rather than angry when she enters the classroom. The social area is still a concern for Evelyn, but she is able to talk to other children and occasionally initiate play whereas in August she would not even

acknowledge a child who spoke to her. It has been very exciting to see how much she has grown in just 5 months! 2. Comparison & critique of the three assessment methods: Of the three assessment methods (TPBA, Screening, and AEPS), I prefer the AEPS. AEPS was very clear. No jargon was used and the goals were split into easily identifiable objectives. The only disadvantage to the AEPS was the need to see the child in various setting over a long period of time in order to witness all of the objectives. This disadvantage was the same for the TPBA observation. The TPBA contains a lot of objectives, many that contain jargon that I was not familiar with since I am not a specialist in the area that I was observing. The advantage of the TPBA is that it is meant to be split up into developmental areas and each person has their own area to observe. Observing only one area at a time allows the observer to be focused and catch more objectives, particularly if the observer is a specialist in that area. The screening is advantageous in the fact that it can all be done in one setting over a short period of time. The examiner does not need to do observations nor do they need to have a natural play setting. The disadvantage is that the screening only tests the areas of cognitive and gross and fine motor. The social area and communication area of the child cannot be determined and the fact that the screening is not in a natural setting may give the child test anxiety that could affect their performance, giving an inaccurate score. 3. Your skills as an examiner: I did not have much knowledge about these types of assessments before I took this course. I had experienced doing tests and AIMS Web with a few children, but this type of assessment was very different for me. I learned that I have good interviewing and observing skills throughout this semester. I like making connections with children and their families and this helped me to see how the assessment process begins. My observation skills came in handy during the TPBA and AEPS, and I thought that I was able to notice important details of the childrens actions. An area where I could use improvement would be with formal screenings. Doing assessments that have scripted manuals and specific modeling requirements are difficult for me. I must get a thorough look at the manual before hand, and I must have all of the materials prepped before beginning the assessment. What I learned that surprised me the most is probably the large number and wide variety of assessments that exist for children with and without special needs during the early childhood years. If a teacher or specialist chooses to use a certain tool and it does not seem like the right fit for them or the children, then they have many other options that they could go to in order to find what suits them and their situation best. This is a slightly overwhelming (with so many choices) but comforting (to know I can choose) fact. In summary, I greatly appreciate the experience I was able to have with doing assessments. I know that I have developed and began developing useful skills to have as a teacher.

*Name changed