Assessment During Early Childhood Years
by Doris Johnson
Remarkable changes in physical, cognitive, linguistic, and social
growth occur during the early childhood years. Preschoolers seem
to attain new milestones almost daily.
For example, in the area of oral language, some researchers found
that preschoolers may learn two to four new words per day. By age
three they use three and four word sentences and are beginning to
tell personal narratives. By age 5 or 6, children may have a vocabulary
of 8,000 to 15,000 words, can use most basic sentence structures,
and can tell relatively good stories.
Perceptual motor skills also increase steadily. At age three, most
children can draw a circle and the rudiments of human figures, but
by 5 or 6 they generally can draw a square, a triangle, intersecting
lines, and figures that look like people or objects such as houses.
Attention and the ability to maintain focus also increase. Thinking
also changes. By the time children enter school, they have better
notions of cause and effect, can classify objects according to perceptual
features or function, and engage in various types of hypothesis
testing. By age 5 or 6, if children are in a literate environment,
they can differentiate letters from numerals and pictures, read
simple logos or signs, and do pretend reading from books.
Some are already reading, writing messages, and calculating simple
arithmetic problems. However, the rate of development and acquisition
of these skills vary widely. One needs only to step into a nursery
school or kindergarten to see the diversity. It is because of this
variability that many professionals are reluctant to label youngsters
as handicapped during the early childhood years. Others, however,
are reluctant to wait and see when they observe developmental delays
or note that certain children are not meeting age and cultural expectations.
Generally, children with the most visible and obvious handicaps
are recognized first. Hence, programs for children with hearing,
vision, and physical handicaps as well as those with global developmental
delays are established before those with less visible and/or mild
handicaps. In fact, children with less obvious handicaps are not
always identified or served during the preschool years because of
the variations in normal development and concerns regarding premature
labelling.
However, many studies now indicate that early intervention can
make a significant difference. Therefore, many schools and communities
have programs for high risk children. The purpose of this article
is to summarize the areas that should be included in a comprehensive
assessment for children with suspected learning disabilities.
Components of the Diagnostic Process History
A history is essential for any diagnosis. It should include information
about the family background, early development, health, language,
literacy, and educational experiences. Early developmental milestones
provides information about rate of learning and the age at which
parents or teachers first expressed concerns about possible problems.
Early schooling and day care experiences should be discussed, since
the programs in nursery schools and kindergartens vary. Some programs
emphasize social skills whereas others focus on cognition and early
academics.
Sensory Acuity
Whenever a child is suspected of having learning problems, hearing
and vision should be evaluated. Even mild hearing impairments can
interfere with language acquisition.
Mental Ability and Cognitive Processes
Although experts do not always agree on the importance of mental
ability testing, some measures of cognitive functions or aptitude
should be given to determine how the child is performing in the
areas of perception, memory, language, thinking skills, and problem
solving. Children who are delayed in all aspects of development
typically require different types of programs from those who have
uneven profiles or scatter. Many pioneers in the field noted that
children with learning disabilities were not slow in all aspects
of development. Rather, they performed as well as, or better than
their age mates, but performed below expectancy in other areas.
Therefore, diagnosticians should be cautious in using global scores.
Processing weaknesses, language difficulties, or perceptual motor
problems can mask the child's overall ability.
Oral Language
An assessment of both receptive and expressive language is essential
since all other symbol systems, including reading, writing, and
mathematics are based, in large part, on oral language. Within the
area of listening comprehension, the child's ability to comprehend
single words, sentences, question forms, and connected discourse
(i.e., stories or passages longer than sentences) should be examined.
The auditory processes of discrimination (the ability to perceive
differences between words or phonemes) and auditory memory span
also should be evaluated since weaknesses in these areas can result
in faulty comprehension.
Within the area of expressive language, the child's vocabulary,
word retrieval, syntax (grammar), organization, overall expression
of ideas, and articulation should be examined. Both spontaneous
language samples and standardized tests are needed. Often young
children are unaccustomed to taking formal tests. Therefore, the
constrained tasks might not reveal all that the child knows or can
express. It is helpful to observe the children when they are communicating
with parents, teachers, and peers in various contexts.
Phonological Awareness and Early Reading
In recent years, considerable research evidence has indicated that
phonological awareness is a good predictor of early reading. Therefore,
the evaluation should include tasks such as rhyming, segmenting
words by syllable, phoneme manipulation, and blending. However,
phonological awareness is not enough since reading also requires
visual (orthographic) and integrative processes.
Some researchers have found that word matching and letter naming
are also good predictors of early reading. Kindergarten readiness
tests are useful screening measures because they typically include
subtests for listening comprehension, the language of instruction,
phonological awareness (sometimes called auditory discrimination),
and letter recognition. However, because of the group presentation,
no oral responses are expected. Furthermore, attention during group
presentations can be problematic for many children.
For diagnostic purposes, individual tests should be administered.
Measures such as the Test of Early Reading Ability (Reid, Hresko,
& Hammill, 1989) include items requiring the ability to read
logos and simple words, to differentiate print from numerals, directionality,
and other skills. Similar types of information can be obtained from
many informal tasks, including reading signs in the environment,
words on cartons or boxes, as well as words in familiar books.
While knowledge of letter names, picture naming, and phonological
awareness are among the good predictors of early reading, children
must understand the functions of reading and the idea of reading
for meaning.
Early Writing
The writing process begins early in life when children scribble
and make marks on paper. As with all other areas of achievement,
a developmental perspective is needed for assessment. Some preschoolers
barely know how to hold a pencil whereas others can write notes,
signs, and use invented spelling, particularly if they realize that
the primary objective of writing is communication.
Group readiness tests often require copying letters and figures,
but individual measures such as the Test of Early Written Language-2
(Hresko, Herron, & Peak, 1996) yield more information about
the functions of writing, early spelling, and some aspects of written
discourse. Diagnosticians should observe the child during the writing
process to note grasp used, and they should collect many types of
drawings, pretend messages, and other samples to supplement the
results of more constrained tests.
Mathematics
Mathematics is a symbol system that requires many verbal and cognitive
skills. Within the verbal domain, the child's rote counting, one-to-one
correspondence, vocabulary, syntax of mathematics, and oral problem
solving should be examined. Within the visual domain, the child's
ability to recognize numerals and perceive differences in size,
quantity, etc. are usually assessed.
Group readiness tests yield valuable information about quantitative
language, numeral recognition, and problem solving. However, as
with other areas, individual measures such as the Test of Early
Mathematics Ability-2 (Ginsburg, 1990) provide more comprehensive
information, particularly if an item analysis is completed. Informal
observations of the child's ability to organize objects by size,
to estimate, to recognize coins, understand words such as more,
less and the language of math are also helpful.
Reasoning
Reasoning, like other aspects of learning changes over time. Skills
such as classification, problem detection and problem solving should
be explored. Tasks that require sorting, grouping, and classification
of real objects as well as attribute blocks are suggested. Young
children first tend to group by colour or shape, and later classify
objects according to function, usage and higher level categories
such as foods or animals.
Problem solving can be studied in real life situations with tasks
that require children to determine which objects float or sink,
which things might break or bend, and activities that require an
understanding of cause and effect. Watching them test hypotheses
can yield general information about thought processes.
Social Skills
Although social skills and nonverbal learning are not included
in some definitions of learning disabilities, they should not be
ignored. Often such problems are identified very early when children
do not engage in appropriate turn taking or play. Some youngsters
have significant problems with self help skills including dressing
and eating. Others fail to use nonverbal communication appropriately.
Tasks that require careful observation and visual spatial skills
are particularly beneficial.
Attention
Many parents first express concern about their child's behaviour.
They note problems with focus, maintenance of attention, and/or
hyperactivity. Preschool teachers and diagnosticians are encouraged
to observe the child's behaviour in various structured and unstructured
situations. Sometimes attention waxes and wanes with task difficulty
or factors within the environment. In addition, overactivity and/or
lack of sustained attention are common characteristics of 2-and
3-year old children and generally change with age.
Social Maturity and Adaptive Behaviour
Standardized measures for adaptive behaviour can provide valuable
information about a child's overall learning and adjustment in the
environment. Social maturity by definition, is the ability to care
for oneself and others. From interviews with parents and from observations,
one can determine t[ child's general level of independence.
Observations
Most diagnosticians are aware of the limitations of tests. While
tests yield good information, observation of children in real world
settings, when they are engaged in play and social interactions
are equally valuable. With carefully selected materials and probes,
one can examine perceptual skills, hypothesis testing, memory, representation,
various type of play, communication, and problem solving. Only from
observations and real life situations can one explore the child's
use of language for various purposes, the ability to adjust language
for various audi ences, and nonverbal communication.
Diagnosticians should be particularly cautious when giving tests
to children the first time. Dreisbach and Keogh (1982; found that
when Hispanic, Spanish-speaking children were trained in certain
test taking behaviors, they outperformed the untrained group.
Diagnostic Teaching
In order to explore a child's rate of learning and the forms of
instruction that are most beneficial, we recommend periods of diagnostic
teaching. Rather than obtaining a snapshot view of a childs learning,
we want a moving picture to study performance over time and across
contexts.
Summary
In summary, the assessment of young children requires a history,
objective testing, observations, and trial teaching. Whenever youngsters
have uneven cognitive profiles or significant discrepancies between
their chronological age and/or mental aptitude, we recommend comprehensive
assessment, intervention, and monitoring of their learning and performance.
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