Dr. Milton J. Dehn

CPPS
1. Standardized teacher rating scale
2. Ages 5-0-0 to 12-11-30
3. 121 items across 11 subscales
4. Entirely online, internet-web based
5. Online administration time of 15 minutes
6. Online scoring and report
7. Author: Milton Dehn; published by Schoolhouse
Educational Services, 2012
8. Measurement Consultant: Kevin McGrew

1. IDEA definition of LD “disorder…..basic psychological processes”
2. Several states mandate a processing component for LD identification
3. Neuropsych interest
4. Even with RTI, some practitioners evaluate it
5. The previous processing rating scale (PPC) has limitations

1. LD Evaluations (Primary Purpose)
1. Identify psych processing deficits
2. Pattern of strengths and weaknesses
3. Planning further assessment
2. Screening
1. Identifies need for intervention
2. Predicts academic skills development
3. Useful in planning comprehensive assessment
3. Measure progress during interventions
1. Through the use of change-sensitive W-scores

1. Brain processes, operations, functions
2. Any time mental contents are operated on
3. When information is perceived, transformed, manipulated, stored, retrieved, expressed
4. Whenever we think, reason, problem-solve
5. Basic and higher level processes
6. Can’t learn and perform without processing
7. Learning depends on these processes
8. Doesn’t include knowledge or academic skills

1. A group of symptoms involving abnormal behaviors
2. A within child, brain-based deficit
3. That impairs academic learning
4. Not many official processing disorders
1. E.g. CAPD, aphasia, amnesia, dyspraxia

1. It’s not specific to one environment
2. A normative weakness (below average score)
3. Intra-individual: score is significantly weaker than predicted from discrepancy analysis
4. Best if it’s an intra-individual weakness and a normative weakness (this is a deficit; these are rare)
5. It’s impacting academic learning
6. The low psychological processes and low academics have research-based links
7. The linked process and academic skills both have low scores (consistency approach)

1. Psychological processes are like “aptitudes”
2. Relations established through research
1. Flanagan et al., & McGrew’s review of research
2. Swanson, Geary, and others
3. The influence of processes varies by age
4. Look for academic area and related psychological processes to both be low

1. Brain-based
2. Interrelated
3. Necessary for academic learning
4. They underlie academic performance
5. They are broad processes
6. Observable in classroom
7. Processes can be validly assessed through ratings; similar to BRIEF

1. Attention
2. Auditory Processing
3. Executive Functions
4. Fine Motor
5. Fluid Reasoning
6. Long-Term Recall
7. Oral Language
8. Phonological Processing
9. Processing Speed
10. Visual-Spatial Processing
11. Working Memory
12. General Processing Ability (Composite)

1. In classroom: Necessary for learning
2. Attention deficits part of LD; not necessarily ADHD
3. Types: Selective, focused, divided, sustained
4. The problem is attentional control & lack of inhibition
5. On CPPS, links to Executive Functions and Working
Memory

1. Ability to perceive, analyze, synthesize, and discriminate auditory stimuli, mainly speech
2. In classroom: Perceiving and comprehending instruction; being able to understand words with background noise

1. Management of cognitive functions and psychological processes
2. Effectiveness depends on self-monitoring, selfregulation, and metacognition
3. Has a longer course of development
4. More to do with classroom performance than learning of academic skills

1. Hits developmental plateau by age 7
2. On CPPS, has weaker relations with cognitive processes in general but has strong relations with academics
3. On CPPS, pairs up with visual-spatial process.

1. Deductive, inductive reasoning, especially with novel materials
2. Has a longer course of development
3. More important for applied academics

1. Close connection with other processes and with academic learning in general
2. Includes encoding, consolidation, storage, and retrieval
3. Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) is part of

1. Not the content (vocabulary) or receptive language but the oral expression processes

1. Processing of phonemes, e.g. blending
2. Phonemic awareness is part of

1. How quickly information flows through the processing system; a matter of efficiency
2. Too slow: info. lost, process not completed

1. The ability to perceive, analyze, synthesize, manipulate and think with visual patterns
2. A strength in most LD cases
3. Weak relations with all academics; more of a
“threshold” process

1. Processing while retaining information
2. On CPPS includes short-term memory
3. Both verbal and visual

1. GPA score is the average of all process scores
2. Emerges from factor analysis; similar to concept of general intelligence
3. Processes function in an inter-related fashion
4. Most processes contribute to any given behavior, task
5. On CPPS defined as “the underlying efficiency of processing automaticity”

• For report, grouped by subscale
• In developmental (ability) order from lowest item to highest item

1. Initial pilot study with 75 items and 10 scales
1. Result: More range needed
2. Item tryout with 147 items
3. 11 scales in standardization version
4. Items reduced to 121
5. Rasch item analysis used throughout
6. W-scale used throughout
7. Exploratory factor analysis

1. 1,121 students rated by 278 teachers
2. 128 communities in 30 states
3. All data collected online
4. Demographics match U.S. Census well
5. Scores were weighted
6. Included children with disabilities
7. Demographics details

1. Relative to achievement & cognitive tests
2. High scores mean high difficulty and low ability
3. All items stated negatively
4. 0 = Never; 1 = Sometimes; 2 = Often; 3 =
Almost Always
5. Inconsistent ratings when positively stated items were tried during item tryout

1. 4 age groups (5-6; 7-8; 9-10; 11-12)
2. T-scores derived from linear transformation of actual standardization distribution
3. T-Scores, W-Scores, confidence intervals, and conversion to standard scores

1. Boys have more processing problems
2. No sign. Sex differences in fluid reasoning, phonological, and visual-spatial
3. Norms not divided by sex
4. Combined sex norms better for identification

1. Online rating scale 12-15 minutes for teachers to complete
1. Can print free paper copy and enter later
2. Must answer all items (but can save incomplete)
2. Responses: Never, Sometimes, Often, Almost
Always
3. This file is stored, and then accessed for report

1. Brief narrative, graph, and a table of scores
2. Change-sensitive W-scores
3. T-scores; percentiles; confidence intervals
4. Intra-individual strengths and weakness discrepancy table
5. T-score to standard score converter
6. Can be re-run with different options (without a charge)

1. Teacher ratings can be viewed and printed, even before report generated
2. Numerical values will be shown
3. Grouped by subscale
4. Arranged in developmental/difficulty sequence from low to high

1. Use discrepancy table to determine pattern of strengths and weaknesses
1. Predicted score based on mean of other 10
2. Regression toward the mean included
3. +/- 1.00 to 2.00 SD of SEE discrepancy options
4. Strengths and Weakness labeling is opposite of discrepancy, e.g. “-” value = a strength
5. Non LD also have a pattern

1. Internal consistency subscale reliability ranges from .88 to .98 Link
2. .99 on Total Score
3. Inter-rater reliability
1. Range of .21 to .90
2. Median coefficient of 76.5

• Content Validity
• Developmental Evidence
• WJ III Achievement
• WJ III Cognitive
• BRIEF
• LD
• Diagnostic Accuracy

1. Skewed distributions because
1. Very few children have processing problems
2. Fewer processing problems in older children
3. Most processes fully develop early
4. Teachers rate relative to that grade level
2. Dev. changes observed in younger children
3. Changes observed in upper half of problem distribution
4. W values used to arrange items in order

1. A general factor; all subtests load on
1. General processing ability (GPA) may reflect processing efficiency or automaticity
2. More GPA presence with younger children
2. Second factor is Attention, EF, sometimes
WM: Self-Regulatory Processes
3. Third factor is Fine Motor and Visual-Spatial:
Visual-Motor processes
4. Results fairly consistent across age groups