ASSESSMENT IN

SPECIAL
EDUCATION

National Association of Special

Education Teachers
 Definition of Assessment

 Definition of Assessment: Assessment

in special education is a process that
involves collecting information about
a student for the purpose of making
decisions.
 Assessment is primarily a problem-
solving process
 Testing v. Assessment

 Assessment and testing are often

treated synonymously yet they really
aren't the same.
 Testing is just one piece of the
assessment process.
 Your Role in the
Assessment of Students
 No matter which type of
professional you become in the
field of special education, it is
always necessary to fully
understand the assessment
process and to be able to clearly
communicate vital information to
professionals, parents, and
students.
 Multidisciplinary Team

 In special education, you will work

with many professionals from different
fields. You are part of a team, often
referred to as a Multidisciplinary
Team,
 Definition---A Multidisciplinary team
performs the assessment of child for a
suspected disability and then determines the
child’s eligibility for special education
services
 Multidisciplinary Team

 The team’s role is crucial because it

helps determine the extent and
direction of a child’s personal journey
through the special education
experience.
 Consequently, the skills you must
possess in order to offer a child the
most global, accurate, and practical
evaluation should be fully understood.
 Decision Making in the
Assessment Process
 Assessment in special education
is a process that involves
collecting information about a
student for the purpose of making
decisions about an individual.
 Assessment plays an critical role
in the determination of SIX
important decisions
 Decision Making in the
Assessment Process
 1. Evaluation Decisions: Information
collected in the assessment process
can provide detailed information of a
student’s strengths, weaknesses, and
overall progress.

 2. Diagnostic Decisions: Information

collected in the assessment process
can provide detailed information of
the specific nature of the student’s
problems or disability.
 Decision Making in the
Assessment Process
 3. Eligibility Decisions:  Information
collected in the assessment process can
provide detailed information of whether a
child is eligible for special education
services.

 4. IEP (IEP Development) Decisions:

Information collected in the assessment
process can provide detailed information so
that an Individualized Education Program
(IEP) may be developed
 Decision Making in the
Assessment Process
 5. Educational Placement Decisions
Information collected in the assessment
process can provide detailed information so
that appropriate decisions may be made
about the child’s educational placement

 6. Instructional Planning Decisions

Information collected in the assessment
process is critical in planning instruction
appropriate to the child’s special social,
academic, physical, and management needs
 Disability Categories
Under IDEA 2004
 The Individuals with Disabilities
Education Improvement Act (IDEA
2004), Public Law 108-446, is the
federal law that protects those in
special education (This is the
reauthorized IDEA of 1997)

 IDEA lists 13 separate categories of

disabilities under which children may
be eligible for special education and
related services.
 Disability Categories
Under IDEA 2004

 Children are eligible to receive

special education services and
supports if they meet the
eligibility requirements for at
least one of the disabling
conditions listed in IDEA 2004
and if it is determined that they
are in need of special education
services.
 Disability Categories
Under IDEA 2004
Autism Orthopedic Impairments
Deaf-Blindness Other Health Impairments
Developmental Delay Specific Learning
Disabilities
Emotional Disturbance
Speech and Language
Hearing Impairments Impairments
(including deafness) Traumatic Brain Injury
Mental Retardation Visual Impairments
Multiple Disabilities
 HOW STUDENTS ARE
IDENTIFIED FOR ASSESSMENT

 There are normally three ways in which a

student may be identified for assessment of
a suspected disability:
 1. The student’s classroom teacher may
identify that certain symptoms exist within
the classroom that seem to indicate the
presence of some problem: 
 For example, the student’s work is below
expectations for his or her grade or age, or
the student’s behavior is so disruptive that
he or she is unable to learn.
 HOW STUDENTS ARE
IDENTIFIED FOR ASSESSMENT

 2. The student’s parents may call or

write to the school or to the director
of special education and request that
their child be evaluated: 
 They may feel that the child is not
progressing as he or she should or may
notice particular problems in how
their child learns. When parents note a
problem and request an evaluation,
the school must follow through on the
assessment process. This is the
parents’ legal right.
HOW STUDENTS ARE IDENTIFIED FOR
ASSESSMENT

3. Other school personnel may

suspect the presence of a learning or
behavior problem and ask the
student’s parents for permission to
evaluate the student individually: 
 This may have resulted from a student
scoring far below his or her peers on
some type of screening measure and
thereby alerting the school to the
possibility of a potential problem.
INDIVIDUALS INVOLVED IN THE ASSESSMENT
PROCESS-
THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM (MDT)
 Under IDEA, an evaluation of a child
with a suspected disability must be
made by a multidisciplinary team.
 These professionals must use a variety
of assessment tools and strategies to
gather relevant functional and
developmental information, including
information provided by the parent,
that will assist in determining whether
a child has a disability as defined
under federal law.
 Members of the
Multidisciplinary Team
 Regular education teacher
 School psychologist
 Educational evaluator
 Special education teacher
 Speech and language clinician
 Medical personnel (when appropriate)
 Social worker
 School/guidance counselor
 Parents
 School nurse
 Occupational and physical therapists (when
appropriate)
 COMPONENTS
OF A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT

An evaluation for special education should

always be conducted on an individual basis.
 When completed, it is a comprehensive
assessment of the child’s abilities.
 Under IDEA 2004, no single procedure is
used as the sole criterion for determining an
appropriate educational program for a child.
 Further, the child must be assessed in all
areas related to the suspected disability
 A comprehensive assessment should
normally include many of the following:
 COMPONENTS
OF A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT
 An individual psychological evaluation
including general intelligence, instructional
needs, learning strengths and weaknesses,
and social emotional dynamics
 A thorough developmental, social, and
academic history based on interviews with
parents and student
 A physical examination including specific
assessments that relate to vision, hearing,
and health
 A classroom observation of the student in his
or her current educational setting
 COMPONENTS
OF A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT

 An appropriate educational evaluation

 A behavioral assessment
 Speech and language evaluations,
when appropriate
 Physical and/or occupational
evaluations, when indicated
 Interviews with the student/parents
and significant others in his or her life
 METHODS OF ASSESSMENT USED IN
SPECIAL EDUCATION

 OBSERVATIONS
 Observation: An assessment
technique whereby one observes the
student in his or her natural
environments.
 Observing the student and his or her
environment is an important part of
any assessment process.
 Observations
 Observations in the classroom and in
other settings where the student
operates can provide valuable
information about:
 Academic skills
 Motor skills
 Communication skills
 Social skills
 Two Types of Observations

 1. Nonsystematic observation: Observer

simply watches the observer in his or
environment and notes the behaviors,
characteristics, and personal interactions
that seem significant.
 2. Systematic Observation: Here, the
observer sets out to observe one or more
precisely defined behaviors. The observer
specifies observable events that define the
behavior and then measures the behavior in
a certain way.
 Observations
 Advantages-Get to see spontaneous
behavior
 Disadvantages-
 (1) No control over the situations
 (2) Observer Bias
 Observation Bias
 One source of error may come from the observer -- he
or she must record accurately, systematically, and
without bias.
 If his or her general impression of the student
influences how he or she rates that student in regards
to specific characteristics, the data will be misleading
and inaccurate.

 This can be especially true if the student comes from

a background that is different from the majority
culture.
 In such cases, it is important that the observer have
an understanding of, and a lack of bias regarding, the
student's cultural or language group.
 Common
Observational Techniques
 1. Anecdotal Recording: The observer
describes incidents or behaviors
observed in a particular setting in
concrete, narrative terms (as opposed
to drawing inferences about feelings or
motives).
 This type of record allows insight into
cause and effect by detailing what
occurred before a behavior took place,
the behavior itself, and consequences or
events that occurred after the behavior.

 Common
Observational Techniques
 2. Event Recording: The observer is interested in
recording the number of times a specific behavioral
event occurred (such as how many times the student
hits or gets out of his or her seat).
 A tally sheet listing the behaviors to be observed and
counted is useful; when the observer sees the
behavior of interest, he or she can simply make a tick
mark on the sheet.
 3. Duration Recording: This method usually requires
a watch or clock, so that a precise measurement of
how much time a student spends doing something of
concern to the teacher or assessment team (e.g.,
talking to others, tapping, rocking) can be recorded.
ECOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT

 When observing the child in many different

environments, you are conducting an
Ecological Assessment
 Ecological assessment involves directly
observing and assessing the child in the
many environments in which he or she
routinely operates.
 The purpose of conducting such an
assessment is to probe how the different
environments influence the student and his
or her school performance.
 INTERVIEWS

 Interview: An assessment
technique conducted face to
face (or by telephone)
between an interviewer and
an interviewee where
recorded responses to
questions are obtained.
 Two Types of Interviews
 Structured Interview: Interview
whereby a predetermined set of
questions is asked
 Unstructured Interview: Interview
where predetermined questions are
asked
 Most interviews combine both
structured and unstructured interview
questions
Advantages of an Interview
 Personal
 Emotional
 Flexible
 Disadvantages of an
Interview

 Time consuming
 “Costly”
 Rapport between interviewer and
interviewee
 Concerns with student’s language
ability
 INTERVIEWS
 Interviewing the student in question,
his or her parents, teachers, and other
adults or peers can provide a great
deal of useful information about the
student.
 Ultimately, an interview should be a
conversation with a purpose with
questions designed to collect
information that relates to the
observed or suspected disability of the
child
 PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENTS

 Often, an initial part of the

assessment process includes
examining a student's work, either by
selecting work samples that can be
analyzed to identify academic skills
and deficits, or by conducting a
portfolio assessment, where folders of
the student's work are examined.
 PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENTS
 Perhaps the most important type of
assessment for the classroom teacher
is the portfolio assessment.
 A portfolio is “a purposeful collection
of student works that exhibits the
student’s efforts, progress, and
achievement in one or more areas.”
 Three General
Types of Portfolios

 1. Working portfolio-Teacher, student,

and parents all contribute to the
portfolio. Both works-in-progress and
final product pieces are included.
 Three General
Types of Portfolios
 2. Showcase portfolio-The portfolio houses
only the student’s best work and generally
does not include works-in-progress. The
student manages the portfolio and decides
what to place in it.
 3. Record keeping or Teacher portfolio-The
portfolio houses student test papers and
work samples maintained by the teacher. It
contains work not selected by the student
for inclusion in the showcase portfolio.
 TEST

Test: A set of questions or

tasks administered to an
individual to determine
knowledge or skills. The
results are reported in one
or more types of scores.
 VALIDITY
 Validity is the most essential quality
needed in a measuring instrument.
 Validity denotes the extent to which
an instrument is measuring what it is
supposed to measure.
 Obviously, if an instrument is not
producing the information that it is
supposed to, it is essentially
worthless.
 VALIDITY
 The greater the validity of a test, the
greater our confidence that it
measures what it is designed to
measure.
 Questions about validity are of
ultimate importance for special
educators because it addresses
whether an instrument fulfills the
function for which it was created.
 Reliability
 Reliability refers to the consistency of
measurements.
 In assessment, reliability relates to
the confidence in an instrument to
give the same score for a student if
the test were given more than once.
 A reliable test produces similar scores
across various conditions and
situations, including different
evaluators and testing environments.
 Norm-Referenced Tests
 A norm-referenced test, also
known as an NRT, is designed to
compare student performance to
that of other students.
 In special education, almost
every norm-referenced test
compares an individual student’s
score against national averages.
 Norm-Referenced Tests
 Scores on norm-referenced tests are
not interpreted according to an
absolute standard or criterion (i.e., 8
out of 10 correct) but, rather,
according to how the student's
performance compares with that of a
particular group of individuals.
 Standardization
 All norm-referenced tests include
standardized procedures.
 Standardization: Refers to structuring
test materials, administration
procedures, scoring methods, and
techniques for interpreting results.
 By standardizing the test it means
that all children are receiving the
same questions and procedures, no
matter where it is being administered.
 Standardization
 Standardized tests are very much a
part of the education scene. Most of us
have taken many such tests in our
lifetime.
 There is a wide variety of standardized
tests available to assess different skill
areas.
 In the field of special education, these
include intelligence tests, math,
reading, spelling and writing tests,
perceptual tests and many others.
Criterion-Referenced Tests
 Criterion referenced tests (CRTs) are
scored according to a standard, or
criterion, that the teacher, school, or
test publisher decides represents an
acceptable level of mastery.
 The test giver is interested what the
student can and cannot do, rather
than how his or her performance
compares with those of other people.
Criterion-Referenced Tests
 Mastery-a level of performance on a
criterion-referenced test that shows
that a student has demonstrated the
knowledge, skills, and abilities for a
unit of instruction or subject area as
defined by a predetermined standard.
 CRT are more concerned with
“describing what a student can do”
rather than “comparing” her
performance to others.
 Examples of Criterion-
Referenced Tests
 Examples of criterion-referenced
questions would be:
 Does Jane do 8th grade math
computation problems with 85%
accuracy?
 Did Joe get 90% of the questions
correct on the social studies exam?
 In criterion-referenced assessment,
the emphasis is on passing one or a
series of questions.