SPED 311 Assessment Review Project

Name: Kaylie Searight

Date: April 25, 2017

School/Setting: N/A

How does this project contribute to your knowledge about the technical aspects of assessment?
Each lecture that we have gone over the past semester has led up to this project. This project
better helped me understand the importance of norms, reliability, and validity. If a test does not have these
components, then it is likely that the test is not sufficient. It was also important to understand the
importance of the representation of different groups of individuals whether that is by disability or racial
group. I now understand each type of validity and how they apply to the data and coefficients applied in
the tables.

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

Signature____________________________________________

Name of Test
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Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language Skills

Practical Evaluation

Basic Information

The test being review is called the Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language

Skills (K-SEALS). This test is published by the American Guidance Service. The cost of the

complete test kit is roughly $370.

Discussion of Test Manual

The use of these test materials is intended for preschools, elementary schools, speech and

language clinics, medical agencies, community agencies, day cares, psychological clinics,

hospitals, private practices, and other setters where 3 to 6-year-old children are either

consistently or periodically assessed. The K-SEALS was initially developed for the use in speech

and language evaluations, psychoeducational assessments, program evaluations, and different

forms of assessment that consist of measuring a child’s early language skills and pre-academic

development. The K-SEALS analyzes a supply of key language and early academic skills in

young children. This is used as a tool for inclusion in various speech and language evaluations.

As a component of a comprehensive test battery for common evaluations, speech and language

therapists might possibly include the Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language Skills.

The speech and language therapists could also include the K-SEALS in short testing sessions that

put an emphasis on receptive and expressive skills and articulation. While the K-SEALS is

known for its speech and language evaluation elements, it is also known providing a highly

reliable measure of vocabulary, verbal concepts, number skills, and letter/word recognition.

These areas are still focusing on the early academic development of young children. The K-
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SEALS test manual provides a description and detailed information about the administration,

scoring, interpretations, standardization, development, reliability, and validity.

Discussion of Test Materials:

The Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language Skills includes a test manual.

This test also includes an easel. The easel is composed of 3 K-SEALS subtests. These subtests

are vocabulary, numbers, letters, and words, and an articulation survey. As the administrator

turns each page of the easel, each item’s stimulus is shown to the child being tested. During this

time, the easel page is facing the examiner. This page shows the directions for administrating

each item, the correct response for that particular item, and for some items of the vocabulary

subtest, examples of incorrect response that require additional questions in order for the

examiner to receive a more in-depth answer to the item. The K-SEALS easel is a test material

that could easily be used multiple times. This test is very durable if the examiner is holding the

easel throughout the entire time of testing. The pages are thin, so the examiner should only allow

the child to touch the pages when it is necessary. Since the administrator’s side of the easel

provides a detailed description of exactly what to do during the test, the K-SEALS test is very

easy to use. The only setback is that the easel has the chance of being disengaging for the child.

Discussion of Test Protocol

The test protocol is simple and easy to use. There are specific instructions as to what to

do to entirely complete the administration. The manual provides detailed steps as to how to use

the scoring sheets and process. The durability of the protocols is fairly strong.

Discussion of Test Items

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The test items include the easel and the scoring sheet. In regards to the test directions,

there are in very specific detail. Each test is administered individually. The directions would say

something similar to “show me table”. This would be for the sample. If the child gets the item

correct, the administrator would continue to item number 1 which would say something similar

to “show me fan”. If they were to get item 1 wrong, the administrator points to the picture and

says “this is a fan, now you point to the fan.” The examiner can help the child point to the picture

if necessary. Some items are different and provide the child with the directions such as “what is

this?”. Overall, the administration is moderately easy for the examiner. When recording

responses, the test recording page for each of the subtests includes an item column. The item

column gives the item number and the correct answer for each item. The test recording page has

a column for marking down if the child answered the question right. The page also provides

blanks to write what the child said when they answered an item incorrectly. Additionally, there

are smoothing procedures that are used in several stages of the testing process. The process of

this test makes efficient use of the administration time. The K-SEALS was designed to be easily

used by professionals. This test is easy to be scored by professionals who are used to

standardized testing. After scoring each item, the administrator will complete certain steps in

order to collect all of the scoring information. The first step is for the administrator to obtain

standard scores, along with the confidence intervals for the subtests, scales, and composites. The

next step is to convert those standard scores to percentile ranks and descriptive categories. After

this step, the examiner will convert the raw score of the articulation survey to a descriptive

category. Finally, the administrator will find the importance of the difference between standard

scores on the vocabulary subtest versus the numbers, letters, and words subtest. Each subtest and

composite performance are reported as standard scores and percentile ranks.

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Technical Evaluation

Norms

The K-SEALS development was throughout the span of several years. The development

began in 1987. Smoothing procedures, which are important when the sizes of the samples are

small, were used in several stages of the development of the K-SEALS. The confidence intervals

for standard scores are 90 and 95%. In the K-SEALS test, the norms are presented as adequate.

The norms are consisted of fairly diverse samples that stretch across age, gender, race, ethnicity,

and geographic groups. The size of the population was totaled at 1,000 children, ages 3 to 6 years

and 11 months. Even though this test provides an understandable description of the samples, as

well as a demographic breakdown of the test takers, there are no data presented that present a

description of gender and racial group differences. This goes for the individual subtests and the

composite scores. There is a lack of detail in regards to children with disabilities.

Reliability

The split-half reliability is presented with coefficients for the subtests, scales, and

composite. The split-half method analyzes the internal consistency of each child’s standard

score. The method focuses on the degree to which this test’s scores provide a good representation

of measurement on a unidimensional trait for each group. The data that is provided on the

stability of the standard scores over time is provided. The data uses a test-retest design. The

standard errors of measurement are presented by age group. The scores include those from the

subtests, scales, and composite. The split-half reliability coefficients were coordinated by the odd

and even raw scores. These raw scores were retrieved by young children in the standard sample.

The Spearman Brown Formula corrected the finalized coefficients. The reliability coefficients
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for the composite range from .91 to .96 with a mean of .94. All in all, the K-SEALS split-half

reliability coefficients were outstanding. The results from the test retest reliability indicate that

the K-SEALS scores showed great stability. The scores were over an interval of a few weeks for

a range of ages that were characterized by variability and unpredictability in behavior, as well as

test performance.

Validity

When testing young children, age differentiation should be shown. This is especially true

if the test is designed to measure constructs such as language and academic skills. Of each

subtest and scale, the mean raw scores increased regularly with the age increasing. These results

provide support for the validity of the subtests and scales of K-SEALS. Age differentiation is

necessary, but does not suffice in regards to construct validity. The cognitive construct is

measured shows standard deviation of raw scores. Those scores were earned by each of the

groups between 3 and 6 years. Concurrent validity data provides correlations between K-SEALS

and various widely-used tests of achievement and intelligence. One of those tests is called the

Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children. This test is a measure of intelligence and

achievement. Another test that K-SEALS was compared to was the Stanford Binet Intelligence

Scale, along with the Metropolitan Achievement Test and Readiness Test. The K-SEALS

composite was correlated with standard scores on the individual tests, in the low.80s with the

KABC Verbal Reasoning and Test Composite, which was .55 to .65, along with most KABC

scales. The Metropolitan coefficients were lower, with a range from .30s to .50s. The K-SEALS’

concurrent validity is supported with measures of achievement and intelligence in the data that is

provided. The K-SEALS was also correlated with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the

Braken Basic Concepts Scale. Both of these tests are the closest to K-SEALS in regards to
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content. The PPVT measures receptive vocab and the BBCS measures concepts that are

developed early. The correlations range from .66 to .73, this shows validity for the K-SEALS.

The K-SEALS has good predictive validity. Standard scores on intelligence, language tests, and

achievement and teachers’ grades and ratings of a child’s ability were two criteria that were used

to assess the predictive availability of this test. The correlations between the K-SEALS and the

SAT was .60 and .57. Therefore, these values are consistent with the two concurrent tables.

Teacher’s Rating of Academic Performance was the criteria for teacher ratings. Numbers, letters,

and words tested the children on skills that are more related to a teacher’s point of view. This

was proven to be the better predictor with the numbers in the mid .70s.

Professional Resources

Review of Journal Article

This article provided support on how important early development is for children. The

article mentioned that the K-SEALS is a tool that can be used to measure academic and language

skills. The concept of identifying skills that are problematic was stated. This article provides a

description of the different components of the test as well. It lists different settings this test can

be administered in, as well as the different groups that can be measured. This article helped back

up the claims that were made in the test manual. It furthered the understanding of what the K-

SEALS should be used for in the future (Uyanik & Kandir, 2014).

. Review of Mental Measurements Yearbook Article

This article provided a description of multiple parts of the K-SEALS test. This includes

information about reliability and validity. The article suggested that this test proved that it had

both of those. The article also provided an interpretation of the administration process. It
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described how the directions are precise and complete. It was noted that this test does not have

much to offer in regards to interventions and diagnosis. The test would be best used as a

screening tool. This article states that the K-SEALS is a highly-developed tool that can be used

by speech therapists. However, those that are not associated with speech and language might

struggle with administering the test.

The article chosen is a review of the Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language

Skills test. This article provides details to support that this test provides a great measurement of

early academic development. This article provides insight to the type of area this test should be

focused in on (Ackerman, 1983).

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References

Ford, L. (1995). [Test review of Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language Skills]. In J.

C. Conoley & J. C. Impara (Eds.), The twelfth mental measurements yearbook. Retrieved

from http://marketplace.unl.edu/buros/

Kaufman, S. A., Kaufman, L. N. (1993). Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and Language

Skills. Pearson Assessments.

Uyanik, %., & Kandir, A. (2014). Adaptation of the Kaufman Survey of Early Academic and

Language Skills to Turkish Children Aged 61 to 72 Months. Educational Sciences:

Theory & Practice.