Students with Learning Disabilities

1. Students with Learning Disabilities Assessment

2. Purposes of Assessment • Screening • Determining eligibility • Planning a program • Monitoring student progress • Evaluating a program

3. Types of Assessment • Formal evaluation - Standardized testing - Norm-referenced • Tests of Intelligence - Used to ascertain student’s general ability level and to rule out mental retardation

4. Informal Evaluation and Assessment - Criterion tests - Probes - Placement tests - Checklists - Direct observation - Miscellaneous techniques - Curriculum-based assessment - Alternative assessment

5. Testing Guidelines • Assessing Culturally Diverse Students • Over-representation of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in programs for learning disabilities • Testing Accommodations • i.e., extended time and tests read aloud • Teachers should make decisions on what accommodations to use based on data-based decisions

6. Assessment Process in Learning Disabilities • Prereferral • Analyze individual cases and find strategies before referring to special education • Referral • Involves determining if a student is a candidate for special ed services, contacting and discussing it with the parents, beginning a screening study, and meeting with parents and appropriate professionals to decide if formal evaluation is needed

7. Assessment Process Continued • Assessment for Identification • Examining the parameters that define a learning disability • Looking for severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability

8. Assessing Specific Components of a Learning Disability • Exclusion: looking at other factors such as hearing problems or emotional disturbance • Academic Achievement: discrepancy between ability and achievement • Language Achievement: listening comprehension and oral expression • Process: visual, auditory, haptic, sensory-integration, and motor • Discrepancy: failure to achieve in one of seven areas, the gap between achievement and and intellectual ability must be extensive enough to result in “severe discrepancy”

9. Determining Discrepancy -Standard Score Comparisons -Deviation from Grade Level -Expectancy Formulas -Regression Analysis

10. Assessment Model • Determine scope and sequence • Decide what behavior to assess • Select an evaluation activity • Administer the evaluation • Record student’s performance • Determine short- and long-range instructional objectives

11. Assessment for Instruction • Assessment for How to Teach • Identify major areas of assessment: expectation factors, stimulus events, response factors, and subsequent events • Weigh the major areas in relation to each other; after they have been assessed and viewed as a whole, a profile may be written • Individualized Education Program (IEP) • Once student is determined as having a learning disability, assessment focuses on instruction; process is guided by an IEP