Transdisciplinary, Play-Based Assessment in Early Childhood Special Education

Although standardized assessments for young children have been criticized, little empirical evidence exists to support alternative assessment methods. Forty children under 3 years of age referred for an early childhood special education evaluation were randomly assigned to either a multidisciplinary, standardized assessment or a transdisciplinary, playbased assessment. Data on parent perceptions, staff perceptions, time factors, functional utility of reports, and parent and staff congruence in judgment-based ratings were evaluated. The play-based assessments took 3 weeks less time to complete than standardized assessments, resulted in favorable parent and staff perceptions, provided useful reports, and had high congruence in developmental ratings. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the social validity of transdisciplinary, play-based assessment methods.

[1]  Laurie A. Dinnebeil,et al.  Congruence Between Parentsapos; and Professionals' Judgments About the Development of Young Children with Disabilities , 1994 .

[2]  M. Wolery,et al.  Arena Assessment: Description and Preliminary Social Validity Data , 1984 .

[3]  Advocating for Effective Preschool Assessment Practices: A Comment on Bagnato and Neisworth. , 1994 .

[4]  S. Bagnato,et al.  An Overview of Judgment-Based Assessment , 1990 .

[5]  J. T. Neisworth,et al.  The Case Against Intelligence Testing in Early Intervention , 1992 .

[6]  Brian Overbeck,et al.  Transdisciplinary Play-Based Assessment: A Functional Approach to Working with Young Children , 1992 .

[7]  J. T. Neisworth,et al.  A national study of the social and treatment "invalidity" of intelligence testing for early intervention. , 1994 .

[8]  G. Woodruff,et al.  Early Intervention Team Approaches: The Transdisciplinary Model. , 1988 .

[9]  Clinical Sampling in the Assessment of Young Children with Handicaps , 1990 .

[10]  A. B. Hollingshead,et al.  Four factor index of social status , 1975 .

[11]  R. Hawkins,et al.  Is social validity what we are interested in? Argument for a functional approach. , 1991, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[12]  M. Wolf,et al.  Social validity: the case for subjective measurement or how applied behavior analysis is finding its heart. , 1978, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[13]  A. Turnbull,et al.  Parent involvement as viewed by parents of preschool handicapped children , 1981 .

[14]  Tina M. Smith,et al.  INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM CONSENSUS RATINGS OF CHILD FUNCTIONING , 1995, Developmental medicine and child neurology.

[15]  D M Baer,et al.  Social validity assessments: is current practice state of the art? , 1991, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[16]  D. Bailey,et al.  Consumer Validation of an Index Characterizing the Functional Abilities of Young Children with Disabilities , 1993 .