Infant Assessments

PSY 417

Types of Assessment

Norm Referenced: designed to determine ability relative to normative group.

 Validity is always dependent on appropriate administration and comparison to appropriate normative group.

 Standardization is necessary to make tests meaningful.

Uniformity of procedure in administration and scoring.

Validity and Reliability

Reliability  Test-retest  Interrater reliability Validity  Content  Concurrent  Predictive

Bayley Scales of Infant Development - III

1 Month to 42 Months Items grouped by chronological age] Standardized    Gender, race, socioeconomic status, rural vs. urban areas 1700 children in 1-3 month intervals Norms for premature infants, HIV-positive, substance exposure, hypoxic, developmentally-delayed, autistic, Down Syndrome, frequent ear infections

BSID-III

5 Major Developmental Domains: 1) Cognitive  Attention and anticipatory behavior; exploration of environment; object retention; cause and effect; object permanence; relational play; imitation; grouping; classification; memory, problem solving, etc.

2) Language   Receptive: responds to name/voice; identification; follows directions; Expressive: vocalizing mood; vowel and consonant sounds; expressive jabbering; use of words; naming objects; questioning 3) Motor  Quality of movement, motor planning, fine and gross motor, sensory integrations

BSID-III continued

4) Social-emotional  Appropriate social responses, imitation, initiates interactions, etc.

5) Adaptive Behavior          Communication: attends to others; follows directions, expresses feelings Community Use: walks on sidewalk, uses restroom in public places Functional pre-academics: colors, counting, knowing name and age Home living: feeds self, cleans up Health and Safety: follows directions for safety; expresses when hurt Leisure: plays alone, with adults or in groups; follows game rules Self care: feeds self; drinks from cup, washes hands, etc.

Self-direction: controls temper, follows adults rules Social: smiles, responds differently to familiar and unfamiliar persons, shares toys

Bayley Scales of Infant Development

Subscales – standard scores (M=100, SD=15) High test-retest reliability  Weaker reliability in lower ages, better in older Validity?

 Good for low-scoring infants (below 70)  Bad for middle/high scoring infants (above 70)

Criterion-Referenced Tests

Based on specific performance skills rather than comparison to performance of other infants.

Measured on ability to meet criteria of mastering items – proficient or not proficient on each task.

 “Can complete 80% of 2-year language items” Rossetti Infant-Toddler Language Scale   Birth to 36 months Preverbal and verbal areas of communication and interaction

Curriculum-based Assessment

Can be used to translate tests results into intervention plans.

Test items are similar to curriculum goals.

Test-teach-test approach Carolina Curriculum Hawaii Early Learning Profile (HELP): developmental activity sheets for professionals to give parents.

   Birth to 36 months 650 developmental skills Step by step instructions for specific needs

Play-based Assessment

Transdisciplinary Play-Based Assessment  Linder – model for systematically observing and assessing infants/toddlers through play interactions.

 Based on research showing that play encourages thinking skills, communication and language skills, movement proficiency, and social-emotional development.

Ordinal Scales

Based on Piagetian theory of cognitive development Tests increasingly complex levels of sensorimotor competence Assesses Piagetian concepts – object permanence, means-ends schemes

Uzgiris-Hunt Ordinal Scales of Psychological Development

6 Subscales  Visual Pursuit and the Permanence of Objects  Means for Obtaining Desired Environmental Events  Development of Vocal and Gestural Imitation  Development of Operational Causality  Construction of Object Relations in Space  Development of Schemes for Relating to Objects

Sample Items from U-H Ordinal Scale – Object Permanence

1. Noticing the disappearance of a slowly moving object  Does not follow to point of disappearance  Loses interest as soon as object disappears  Lingers with glance on point of disappearance  Returns glance to starting point after several presentations  Searches around point of disappearance

Judgment Based Assessments

Interviews/observations Hypothesis Generating More natural for child and parent Easier to integrate into practice Results are less comparable across children, clinicians, and settings (poor reliability)

Judgment Based Assessments

More focus on “objective” evaluation from government, schools, parents… Norm referenced testing is “deified” and non norm referenced testing is “denigrated” Both are central to work with young children Interpret results with caution  Be aware of own biases “I can spot an (autistic child, abused child, etc.) a mile away”  Remember that your biases are, by nature, invisible to you.