Abstract:
Recent legislative guidelines, theoretical perspectives, and the focus on the role of families in assessment, have prompted many professionals to rethink the tools and techniques used in the assessment process. Primary concerns regarding currently used instruments have focused on their general lack of ecological validity or more specifically, their inability to: (a) identify children's strengths or typical behaviors, (b) provide information under more naturalistic contexts, (c) reflect parent's views of their children, and (d) facilitate functional intervention planning. This course will focus on practical ways to provide more ecologically based assessments to children birth to five. Alternative tools and techniques, which display greater ecological validity, will be discussed along with videotape examples of their use to increase family participation in assessment.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of the course, participants will:
- Identify current trends in assessing young children with special needs and their families.
- Describe ecologically valid techniques and tools for assessing young children.
- Discover techniques and tools for engaging caregivers more actively in the assessment process
- Analyze their own beliefs and practices regarding assessment of young children.
Biosketch:
Elizabeth Crais, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences of the Department of Allied Health Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Dr. Crais has been active within early intervention for over 30 years as a speech-language pathologist, university professor, clinical supervisor, and researcher. She has published a number of articles and book chapters and made numerous presentations dealing with working with young children with special needs and their families. She is the author of A Practical Guide to Embedding Family-Centered Content Into Existing Speech-Language Pathology Coursework, co-author with P.J. McWilliam and Pam Winton of Practical Strategies for Family-Centered Early Intervention, and co-editor of two companion books: Handbook of Early Language Impairment: Nature (focused on etiology) and Assessment and Treatment. |
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