Assessing Children with Disabilities
in General Education
Andrea Barela
EPSY 6300
Summer 2008
The Assessment and Performance
Transformation in Special Education
 Congress passed No Child Left Behind provisions
 Included the participation of special education students in annual state
assessments
 Performance is reported separately under NCLB requirements
 To ensure adequate progress, students are tested and assessed in the
regular curriculum
 The Individual Education Plan (IEP) team must determine if
participation is appropriate with evidence to support their claims
 If not, appropriate, state-approved accommodations or alternative assessments must
be administered
The Transforming Role of Eligibility for
Services
• IDEA ’97
– Encouraged “pre-referral” intervention, highlighting
developmental delays
• IDEA’04
– Implemented an option to use discrepancy models or a
response to intervention (RTI) model to determine
Specific Learning Disabilities
Two Major Assessment Models
 The Discrepancy Model
 Uses aptitude or IQ test against an achievement test
 Determines a severe discrepancy between a child’s
predicted achievement versus their actual achievement
 Response to Intervention Model
 Uses early intervention with evidence-based treatments
 Child’s progress is monitored and/or graphed
Shortcomings of Assessment Models
• Discrepancy Model
– “Wait-to-Fail”
– Lacks specifics in differentiating among low achievers
– Different tests yield different scores
– Can depress IQ and achievement scores and increase referrals
– Lengthy and expensive
• RTI Model
– Trained staff and support uneven across states
– Local norms for curriculum-linked assessments not developed
– Discrepancies in ‘scientific, research-based’ definition
– Wide-scale data collection, graphing, analysis, and management
not developed
RTI Tier I
 Focused in the regular education program
 Students are tested at least three times a year
to help determine their instructional needs
 Provides high quality instruction and
behavioral supports by the classroom teacher
 Progress is monitored weekly
 Minimum of 6-8 weeks
RTI Tier II
 Provides targeted, specific prevention or
remediation interventions
 Academic performance or behavior lags behind
grade level norms
 Progress in the improvement of skills is
monitored twice weekly
 Minimum of 30 minutes a session for 40
sessions
RTI Tier III
 Insufficient response is still exhibited after first
two Tier interventions
 More intensive, individualized interventions
implemented
 Progress in the improvement of skills is
monitored twice weekly
 Minimum of 60 minutes a session for 45
sessions
The Transforming Role of the
General Education Teacher
 Under RTI criteria, responsibilities include:
 Documenting discrepancies
 Implementing research-based,
scientifically validated interventions
 Tracking progress
 Interpreting and reporting data
 checklists, observations, rating scales,
teacher-made and standardized tests, and
portfolios
 Referring for evaluation if enough progress
is not made
An Experimental Examination
 Read the descriptions of the 4 children
presented next
 Formulate:
 What RTI Tier do you think each child is in?
 What kinds of measures and assessments could
be appropriate for this child based on what you
have learned in this class
Child Description 1
 DJ is a 7 year-old boy with serious articulation and language
impairments. He can be non-compliant at times, disrupt the
classroom routine, and can be destructive when upset. He is
one of the lowest readers in his grade. Besides reading,
writing can be difficult due to his language impairments.
However, when he chooses to work hard, all other school
subjects are on grade level. Home support is minimal.
Child Description 2
 JR is a 7 year-old boy with mental retardation and serious
speech and language impairments. He has tested at or near
Kindergarten level for all school subjects. He demonstrates
poor social boundaries, has frequent tantrums, and produces
repetitive noises. Home support is encouraging, but not very
active.
Child Description 3
 LC is a 7 year-old boy who is learning English as his second
language. He is one of the lowest readers in his class and
writing can be difficult due to his language confusions as
well. He works one-on-one with an ESL teacher to support
his English acquisition. He is a hard worker, and his other
school subjects are close to grade level. Home support is
strong, but unable to academically help due to the language
barrier.
Child Description 4
 FM is a 6 year-old girl with poor social boundaries, sensory
integration, and speech and language impairments. She is
currently in Reading Recovery as one of the lowest readers in
her class. She shows inconsistencies and inattentiveness in
other school subjects as well. She has poor fine-motor skills
and has difficulty completing school work. Home support is
strong, but frustrated with the school decisions being made
for her child.
A Proposal to Transform the Process
Dynamic Assessment
 An index of a child’s readiness to change
 Represents a unique means of differentiating performance among
children at the low end of the achievement continuum
 Differs from traditional testing by
 Developing the examiner-student relationship
 Providing feedback
 Emphasizes process instead of product
Dynamic Assessment
 Improves RTI by identifying the type and intensity of
intervention necessary for academic success
 Test-teach-test format
 Measures responsiveness in shorter time frame
 Psychometric properties and predictive validity are still
infrequent
Dynamic Assessment (DA) as
Responsiveness to Intervention
(Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L., Compton, D., Bouton, B., Caffrey, E., Hill, L., 2007)
 DA, along with traditional testing, may indicate a student’s
potential for change, likeliness of school success, and
appropriate instruction
 Used for nonresponders to Tier 1 instruction, focused on
early reading skills
 Purpose: to determine various measures that explained
students’ responsiveness to 11 weeks of instruction
The DA Study
 Late fall of first grade, 133 students
 Measures consisted of 3 subtests of nonwords
 CVC (see hand out)
 CVCe (fote, gope, vope, wote, jope, zote)
 Doubling (fotting, goping, voping, woting, jopping, zoting)
 5 opportunities to master content
 1=mastery first time given, 5=mastery 5th time given
 Subtests added together for total score
 Lower score = faster mastery
 Intervention study with “intervention” defined as general classroom
instruction
“Repeat After Me”
Bod
Zod
Bom
Zom
The DA Results
 Indicated future academic performance
 Predicted and explained students’ general reasoning, verbal
and mathematics achievement
 Tapped into aspects of reading performance that other
measures did not
 Predicted achievement more accurately
 For children with disabilities
 When achievement was defined as a posttest and criterionreferenced test
The DA Advantages
 Selects an appropriate level of instructional intensity for
individual students
 Speeds up the assessment and implementation process for
each child
 Eliminates false positive children
 Identifies neediest children to surpass Tiers 2 and 3
The Special Education Process
 Child Identification
 Individual Assessment
 Individual Education Plan (IEP) Development
 Individualized Instruction
 Reviewing the IEP
Child Identification
 Referral to Admission, Review, and Dismissal (ARD)
committee made
 Valid, reliable, accurate data presented in support of
referral
 Academic records
 Achievement data
 Observations of social, emotional, and attitudinal status
 Documented results of previous interventions
 Parent provided information
Individual Assessment
 Collect and analyze more information on:
 Achievement
 Language (expressive and receptive)
 Physical (control/operation of motor functions)
 Intellectual (verbal/nonverbal actions and adaptive behavior)
 Emotional/Behavioral
 Sociocultural (Family history and home circumstances)
IEP Development
 ARD team members:
 Review assessment findings
 Develop an IEP based on child’s needs
 States competencies and developmental skills
 Physical abilities exhibited
 Factors that could affect progress
 Annual instructional objectives with dates, criteria, and times
 Identify specific services provided in the least restrictive environment
 Determine child’s degree of participation in annual assessments
and document reasoning
Individualized Instruction
 Day-to-day instruction based on objectives
 Instructional environment conducive to providing multiple
learning opportunities
 Standard procedures implemented to monitor progress
 Behavior management plan implemented
Reviewing IEP
 School districts must establish a standard set of procedures
for reviewing the progress of a student’s IEP goals
 Major changes to an IEP can only be executed through an
ARD meeting
 Review appropriateness of:
 Instructional options
 Annual objectives
 Reliability and validity of assessments
A Proposal to Transform the Diagnosis
Universal Screening for Developmental Disorders
(Pinto-Martin, Dunkle, Earls, Fliedner, & Landes, 2005)
 Effective, early intervention is a public health imperative
 Academic, social and economic savings
 Detection and referral can be made in children as young as 18
months of age
 Used validated screening tools:
 Autism Screening Questionnaire
 Parent-response & standardized developmental screening tools
 For a positive screen, a secondary screen was administered
Universal Developmental Screenings
 In 4 years, 75% of the children in North Carolina were
screened
 Improved early identification:
 By the age of 2, 75% of children with a positive screen were
diagnosed with Autism
 State policy in North Carolina was changed to include
screenings at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months, as well as 3, 4, and 5
years of age
 Tests results must now be included in medical records
Articles
 Pinto-Martin, J. A., Dunkle, M., Earls, M., Fliedner, D., & Landes,
C. (2005). Developmental Stages of Developmental Screening:
Steps to Implementation of a Successful Program. American Journal
of Public Health, 95, 1928-1932.
 Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L., Compton, D., Bouton, B., Caffrey, E., & Hill,
L. (2007). Dynamic Assessment as Responsiveness to
Intervention. Teaching Exceptional Children, 39, 58-63.
 Book
 Kubiszyn, T. & Borich, G. (2007). Educational Testing and
Measurement:Classroom Application and Practice (8th Edition). New Jersey:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Resources

Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (http://idea.ed.gov/)
IDEA is a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation. It governs how states and public agencies provide
early intervention, special education and related services to eligible children and youth with disabilities.

Council for Exceptional Children (http://www.cec.sped.org/am/template.cfm?section=Home)
The CEC is an international professional organization that serves the educational and developmental needs of students with disabilities
or those who are gifted. It is designed as an advocate and supporter of underserved individuals with exceptionalities, as well as
parents, teachers, paraprofessionals, and administrators.

Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/osep/index.html)
The OSEP provides leadership and financial support to states and local school districts in their efforts to improve results for children
and youth with special needs.

National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (http://www.nichcy.org/)
NICHCY is a central source of information on children with special needs, IDEA, No Child Left Behind, and researched-based
information on effective educational practices. They are continually building a comprehensive training curriculum on IDEA 2004.

National Research Center for Learning Disabilities (http://www.nrcld.org)
NRCLD researches the role of and best practices associated with learning disabilities and response to intervention. It works to
support educators, policymakers, and parents in understanding and deciding upon whether a child has a specific learning disability.

ACCESS Center (http://www.k8accesscenter.org/index.php)
The Access Center was a national technical assistance (TA) center funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special
Education Programs. The ACCESS Center’s mission is to improve educational outcomes for elementary and middle school students
with disabilities.

Iris Center for Faculty Enhancement (http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/resources.html)
The Iris Center provides resources that work to transform research about the education of special needs students into practice.
Geared for university faculty and professional development providers, these resources are still beneficial for any teacher to consider
when including children with special needs.
A Brief Introduction

Educating special needs children is an on-going process. Before 1975, most special education
options were to stay home or go to an institution. However, since the Education for All
Handicapped Children Act, it has been legislated that all children must be provided with a free,
appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. When the law was reauthorized
in 1990, 1997, and again in 2004, the law was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities in
Education Act (IDEA). The changes made to this act offered new services to millions of school
children that had not otherwise qualified for an appropriate education.

Currently, there are over 6.5 million children with special needs in the United States that
must be accommodated for. Although the federal government promised to cover 40 percent of the
additional costs incurred by districts to educate students with disabilities, they have never paid more
than 15 percent. This has caused a windfall of issues for school districts and state agencies to deal
with as they juggle the interpretation, implementation, funding, and staffing for accommodating
IDEA.

As school districts develop individualized education plans (IEPs) in the least restrictive
environment, the IEPs are constantly studied and evaluated to determine their appropriateness and
success. A team of specialists and family members must weigh the benefits and consequences of
each placement option in special education. Then, they must determine which placement would
ultimately promote the most efficient and well-rounded progress of those needs for that child.
A Brief Overview
• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
– Requires that children with special needs be educated in the least restrictive
environment that will still meet their needs
– Expanded opportunities for partnerships and collaboration by targeting
funding for multiple research and assistance
– Shortcoming: some feel rights of students were compromised in order to
give schools more flexibility
• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
– Requires that children with special needs be educated in the maximum
extent appropriate with peers who are not handicapped
– Broader standard of eligibility; expands special services for those children
who fail to qualify under IDEA
– Short comings: ambiguous, short length of time, uses local/state funds
IDEA from 1975-1996
• Qualification was initially based on
demonstrably severe or serious disabilities
• Identified disabilities before providing services
• Impeded prevention and early intervention
Types of Service Delivery Settings
 There are several types of settings to consider when it comes to
meeting the least restrictive environment (LRE) of a child with special
needs
 Mainstreaming
 Inclusion
 Full Inclusion
 Co-Teaching
 Resource Room
 Self-Contained Classroom
 Out-of-District Placement
IDEA Categories
 Challenging Disabilities:
 Physical disabilities
 Hearing impairments
 Visual impairments
 Mental retardation
 Behavior disorders
 Learning disabilities
 Communication disorders
 Autism
 Traumatic Brain Injury
 Multiple/Severe disabilities
 Developmental Delays:
 Physical
 Cognitive
 Communication
 Social and Emotional
 Adaptive
o Purpose of categories is to identify
learners in need of assistance
o Regular classroom teacher plays an
integrated role in the preparation and
assessment of categorical services
delivered to students