SPED 311 Curriculum Based Assessment II

Name: Emilie Colwell

Date: November 3, 2015
School/Setting: Sam Houston Elementary/Life Skills

How did you account for reliability and validity with this measurement tool?
When conducting a CBM, it is extremely important to make sure that results are reliable
and accurate when observing a child. I accounted for reliability and validity with this
measurement tool by not only keeping record of the results of each trial, but by also discussing
my results with the mentor teacher. In discussing the results that I charted, I was able to discuss
if these results were an accurate portrayal of the student. I also looked for the reliability of this
test in watching Tim outside of the classroom setting. By seeing that he rarely sits still in the
cafeteria and in Specials, I saw that my results were valid.

On my honor, as an Aggie, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this
academic work.

Signature____________________________________________

Description of Student:
Basic Information: Tim is a nine year old male student and is in 4th grade. He is a student with
Down Syndrome. Tim is semi-verbal and can communicate his needs and wants slightly. His
speech is often hard to understand, so he meets twice a week with the speech therapist. Tim rocks
constantly and must wear a weighted vest to help restrain his movements. He is constantly out of
his seat and roaming the classroom. His academic levels are very much behind those of his peers.
IDEIA Eligibility: Tim spends the majority of his time in the Life Skills classroom. He receives
45 minutes of inclusion in a 5th grade General Education classroom four times a week. He also
meets with the speech therapist twice a week for 30 minutes.
Academics: Tim is currently working on learning his alphabet and one-to-one correspondence in
numbers 1-20. He is also perfecting the identification of colors, months of the year, and days of
the week.
Social: Tim is very outgoing and loving towards others. He interacts with not only children in the
life skills room, but students that are his age in general education. However, he does have times
where he gets too wound up and will hit or bite others without being instigated. He has had
several instances where he must be physically restrained by the mentor teacher or instructional
assistants until he calms down.

Objective: By the end of the instructional period of 36 weeks, Tim will be able to stay seated in
his chair and remain on task without causing distraction to others for 5 minutes at a time, in 4/5
trials with 80% accuracy.

Measurement Tool:

Directions: Please stay in your seat and flat on your pockets while you complete your work.
+ = correct and independent ~ = correct or self-corrects, 1 verbal prompt/correction needed
- = completely out of his seat or >1 verbal prompt/correction needed

Elements

Trial 1
10/21/15

Trial 2
10/26/15

Trial 3
10/28

Trial 4
11/2/15

Trial 5
11/4/15

Total

4/5

3/5

3/5

4/5

4/5

1/5

5/5

4/5

5/5

Stays in
seat for
entire 5
minute
period.
Subtle
movements
that are not
distracting
to self or
others.
Stays flat
in his seat,
sitting on
his bottom.
Remains on
task.
Completes
his work
quietly and
without
disrupting
others.
Total
3/5

Administration Discussion:
Overall, the administering of this CBM went very closely to how I expected. In watching him in
class, I had a pretty good hypothesis of how he would score. While Tim can stay seated when he
is reminded, there are times when he just simply has too much energy and cannot stay in his seat.

When he gets out of his seat, it is very distracting to the other students and it is difficult to get
them back on track. This is why my mentor teacher has been working with him on this behavior.
He does not get in trouble for rocking back and forth, but it he begins to get rowdy or put his
hands on others, he is reprimanded. I believed that he could score a perfect score in at least three
of the trials, but every now and then, he will have a bad day and struggles behaviorally. I
accounted for those bad days by not hypothesizing that Tim would score 5/5 in every trial.
While he did relatively well in the course of the five trials, this goal is still a work in progress.
Discussion with Mentor:
The results of the CBM were very close to what my mentor teacher hypothesized as well. She
has been concerned in Tims safety when he roams around the room. This is why she has made it
a goal for him to be able to stay seated for extended periods of time by the end of the year. By
conducting the CBM, we were able to document proof of how Tim is doing with this goal in this
point in time. After discussing the results with my mentor teacher, I believe that this is a
measurement tool that she could use again at a later date to track Tims progress or lack thereof.
Future Teaching:
As a result of conducting my measurement, I believe that meeting Tims goal of being able to
remain seated and on task is still a work in progress. Tim is able to remain in his seat a majority
of the time, but he still needs to be reminded often. I also noticed that Tim has more success in
remaining seated and on task when he is wearing his weighted vest. In the trial that took place on
10/26, Tim was not wearing his vest and I believe that this is evident in his score. I think that
with consistency in wearing his vest and by using positive reinforcement, Tim will be able to
meet his goal of remaining in his seat in the span of the allotted 36 instructional weeks.