Innovative Assessment Practices Supporting Families and Communities May 24, 2007

1. Family Centered Practice in Communicating Assessment ResultsLaurie Ford & Suretha SwartUniversity of British Columbia Innovative Assessment Practices Supporting Families and Communities May 24, 2007

2. Goal for Today • We want to discuss ways to put the assessment process in context • Primary contexts for the young child are their family and cultural contexts • We hope you walk away with ideas for how to better address the families and cultural needs of the students you assess

3. Assessment A generic term that refers to process of gathering information for the purpose of making decisions The purpose of the assessment must be clear to all involved because it will determine the questions that we ask, the instruments and procedures that we use

4. Assessment Methods • Direct observation of children • Informal and structured interviews with children • Informal and structured interviews with teachers • Rating scales or questionnaires

5. On Families “Families, like the faces and fingerprints of the people who comprise them, are all different. Opinions, values, beliefs, goals, resources, languages, style of interaction and modes of communication vary from family to family just as they vary among individuals within each family” p. 72 Mclean, Bailey, Wolery, 2004

6. The Role of the Family in the Assessment Process Traditional Participate in an interview and complete rating scales A More Contemporary View Families work as “collaborators” with professionals in the assessment process What does this mean in your setting?

7. The Role of the Family in the Assessment Process A More Contemporary View Work to involved families throughout the entire assessment process (from the first decision to the last)

8. Strategies for Building Collaborative Relationships • Pre-assessment Planning • CPRs (Concerns, Priorities, Resources) • Family Needs Survey • Ask families what they want/need • Share your professional wants and needs

9. Strategies for Building Collaborative Relationships • Active Participation by Family and Caregivers During Assessment • Mutual Sharing of Assessment Results • Families who are more involved in the process along the way are more likely to respond actively to the assessment results

10. Ask Families Prior to the Assessment What kind of information would be useful to you? What kind of activities would bring out the best in your child? What have you others tried that has been useful with your child? What kind of activities reflect what your child does at home? When & where would be the best time and place to gather information about your child? Ask Families During the Assessment Are we getting a representative sample of what your child can do? Was that the correct interpretation of what your child said (or did)? Are there better ways we should be playing or working with your child? Questions for Validating the Assessment Process

11. Questions for Validating the Assessment Process • Questions to Ask the Family After the Assessment • Did we address your primary concerns? • How do you fell about the overall process and results? • Were the behaviors displayed by your child typical to your child? • What other skills and behaviors is your child able to do that we were not able to see here today? • What could we have done differently?

12. Conducting a Family Responsive Assessment • Issue: Support Communication and Understanding • Requires flexibility and attention to the responses of the child and their caregiver • Explain to the family what you are doing, how you are doing it, and why it is important

13. Conducting a Family Responsive Assessment • Issue: Create a Secure and Non-threatening Environment • For both the child AND the family • When possible conduct assessments in surroundings family to the child and family • If not in the home, make the setting as comfortable as possible • Communicate messages of respect, equality, support, and expertise (both family and professional bring expertise) • When possible, provide some preliminary information on results to the families

14. Conducting a Family Responsive Assessment • Issue: Share Information Clearly and in a Caring Manner • Present information in the language a family uses • Monitor use of technical terms • Present information like you would to a friend who is bright but knows nothing about child development, assessment or disability • Emphasize strengths….no parent wants to hear only what is not going well, problems, etc • Allow time for the family to process information….allow for silence

15. Conducting a Family Responsive Assessment • Issue: Determining What Families Want in the Decision Making Process • Listen to what the family has to say (and not say) • Be aware of who the family wants involved in the assessment decisions • Remember that when families do not do what professionals expect, it may be that the professional does not have appropriate expectations

16. Taking a Culturally Responsive Approach to the Assessment of Young Children

17. What is cross-cultural competence? • “The ability …to respond optimally to all children, understanding both the richness and the limitations of the sociocultural contexts in which children and families as well as the service providers themselves, may be operating” (Barrera & Kramer, 1997, p. 217). • “A set of behaviors, attitudes, and policies, that enable a system, agency, and/or individual to function effectively with culturally diverse clients and communities” (Rorie, Paine, and Barger, 1996, p. 93).

18. What is cross-cultural competence? • “ The ability to think, feel, and act in ways that acknowledge, respect, and build upon ethnic, sociocultural, and linguistic diversity” (Lynch & Hanson, 1993, p. 50). • “The ability to conduct one’s professional work in a way that is congruent with the behavior and expectations that members of a distinctive culture recognize as appropriate among themselves” (Green, 1982, p. 52).

19. The Challenge… • Young children are strongly affected by contextual factors • Cultural background can affect how children approaches developmental tasks • Values, beliefs, styles of interaction, coping strategies, and interests vary from family to family but also within families

20. The Challenge… • Requirements to follow consistent procedures that conform to agency policy, ethical guidelines from professional organizations, while providing individualized service that is sensitive to the diversity of families being served • Service systems are in some places mandated to develop methods to ensure family strengths and needs are assessed in culturally appropriate ways (Banks, 2001) • Changes in family constellation, demographics and overall diversity have outpaced changes in assessment procedures

21. Linguistic Diversity • By the year 2020, more than 50% of all school-aged children in the US will come from diverse backgrounds • <14% of service providers in US public schools are from culturally/and or linguistically diverse backgrounds (Matuzny et al., 2007)

22. Linguistic Diversity • Numbers of ESL students in Vancouver Elementary schools point to the need for culturally responsive practices when conducting assessments “in our own backyard”: • Carnarvon Community School (Vancouver’s Westside): 17% of students are acquiring English as a second language. • Mount Pleasant Community School (Vancouver’s Eastside): 29 different language groups in one school, with the majority of students identified as ESL What does diversity look like in your workplace?

23. Family and Diversity • Family perspectives on assessment will be influenced by language but also by many other variables (education, religion, ethnicity, race, culture, values, beliefs, opportunity, socio-economic status). “The mere possession of the capacity to communicate in an individual’s native language does not ensure appropriate non-discriminatory assessment of the individual. Traditional assessment practices and their inherent biases can be replicated in any number of languages” (Flanagan, McGrew, & Ortiz, 2000, p.291).

24. Family Identity & Diversity Two very important questions are raised by Lynch and Hanson (2004): What is the degree to which the family identify with a given cultural perspective or practice? How do life circumstances and historical events affect the degree of identification? Examples: child starting school, divorce, death, relocation, changes in employment or financial status, Other…

25. SES • Socioeconomic status includes income, the level of the family member’s education and the social status implied by the occupation of its wage earners. • Poverty affects the development of English proficiency (Hakuta, Butler, & Witt, 2000). • Furthermore, poverty, independent of English proficiency level, affects learning (Gonzales, 2002)

26. Development of Cross-Cultural Competence • Heightened self-awareness • Exploration of own heritage • Place of origin, time of immigration, reasons for immigration, languages spoken • Learning about own roots=first step to learning how beliefs, customs, behaviors are shaped by culture Gaining cultural specific information (through direct and indirect methods) • Reading, arts, cultural festivals, travel • Professional contacts (home-school liason workers) • Initial Interviews

27. Development of Cross-Cultural Competence • Applying and practicing the methods and information acquired through self-examination and information gathering • Some authors (see Harry, Kalyanpur, & Day, 1999) highlighted the importance of finding a strategy that incorporates the therapists’ perspective with the family’s perspective • Sattler (1988) advocates for seeing the strength in the coping mechanisms of other groups • (for example, reliance on extended family networks)

28. Dimensions(Barrera, 2000) • Communicative linguistic dimension • Potential differences in language used, communication styles • Verbal and non-verbal means of communicating • Sensory cognitive dimension • Potential for differences in priorities (e.g. goals for children in social abilities vs. cognitive abilities) • Strategies for acquiring new information (e.g., verbal vs. non-verbal) • Personal-social dimension • Families and service providers may differ in their degree of acculturation to one another’s culture and to the professional service culture

29. Culturally Responsive Practice Informs All Stages of the Assessment • Culture and language are inherent aspects of individuals being assessed It should be acknowledged throughout the assessment process • Planning the assessment • Gathering information • Interpretation • Sharing of data with families

30. Planning • Address family concerns, priorities, resources and needs • Interventions should be tailored to family’s needs • Collaborative relationships are key • Address hesitancy and ambivalence • Past discrimination • Overrepresentation of minority students in special education have been well documented (Mercer, 1973; Reschley, 1988). • Provide sufficient information

31. Gathering Information • Hanson, Lynch, and Wayman (1990) summarized steps as follows: • clarification of interventionists values • collection and analysis of ethnographic information related to the community in which the family resides • determination of the degree to which the family operates transculturally • examination of the family’s orientation to specific child-rearing issues

32. Guidelines for Data Gathering • Questions about family structure and child rearing practices: • Primary caregivers • Child rearing practices (sleeping,breastfeeding, parameters of acceptable child behavior) • Family structure • Parameters of acceptable behavior

33. Guidelines for Data Gathering • Family Perceptions and Attitudes • Cultural/religious factors that would shape family perceptions of disability? • What is the family’s approach to medical needs (holistic, western ?)

34. Guidelines for Data Gathering • Significant assessment decisions involve two or more professionals • Programs rely on systematic observational assessments, using culturally and linguistically appropriate tools as the primary source of guidance to inform instruction • Assessments are based on multiple methods and measures • Assessments are ongoing-special attention is given to repeated assessments of language development over time • Assessments are age appropriate (NAEYC, 2005)

35. Guidelines for Data Gathering • Language and Communication Styles • To what degree is the professional proficient in the family’s native language? • To what degree is the family proficient in English? • The use of an interpreter

36. Using Interpreters • With which culture is interpreter primarily affiliated ? • Is the family member comfortable with the interpreter? • Address all words and remarks to the family, not the interpreter • Speaking more slowly but not more loudly • Avoid verbally or non-verbally offensive language • Limit information communicated to a few sentences before translation

37. Interpretation of Assessment Results • Adapt your interpretation of results to the individual (i.e. to acknowledge any cultural and linguistic differences) • Professionals should seek information and insight from family members in selecting, conducting, and interpreting assessments (NAEYC, 2005). • Programs should refrain from using family members to conduct formal assessments, interpret during formal assessments, or draw assessment conclusions.

38. Sharing of Results with Families • Professionals involved in assessment regularly inform and update families on their child’s assessment results in a way that is easily understood and meaningful (NAEYC, 2005)

39. Case Example • Kai is a 4 year old who moved to your region a year ago with his “family” from India. • His older siblings are in elementary school and are doing exceptionally well. • Kai’s parents have noticed that Kai is not as far along in his learning at this age as his siblings were.

40. Case Example • Some preliminary information from the Public Health Nurse when the family moved to British Columbia indicates that there were some early concerns with Kai’s development before they moved to Canada. • Some initial assessment is needed to help: 1) determine his eligibility for services; and 2) develop an appropriate intervention program to help him transition to school.

41. What Do You Do? • What should we do to start the assessment process? • How do we meet the needs of the family and consider their cultural context? • What do we need to remember as we conduct the assessment? • What do we need to consider as we communicate the assessment results?

42. Thank-You! For more information or references contact Laurie Ford at: laurie.ford@ubc.ca