Traditional and Innovative Assessment Techniques for Students with Disabilities: Volume 36

This chapter addresses assessment of students with disabilities. It begins with brief analyses of purposes of assessment, especially with regard to their uses in classrooms. Next, it discusses both formal and informal assessment techniques, focuses on performance-based assessment, authentic assessment, portfolios, self-assessment, response to intervention, and teacher evaluation and/or accountability. Embedded in these discussions are implications of assessments on students with disabilities.

Assessment is at the core of high-quality education. When educators purposefully engage in assessment, the learning experiences and outcomes of all students, especially of students diagnosed with specific learning disabilities (SLDs), are improved. In this chapter, we discuss assessment as unfolding within a framework that includes purposes, processes, and tools of assessment existing in the educational context. We open the chapter with an explanation of this framework. Then, in Part 1, we review the construct of SLD and detail how assessment is used within prominent approaches to diagnosis. In Part 2, we discuss how assessment is used to inform instruction before and after diagnosis. We ground our discussion in a vignette that follows Tess, a student who, at the beginning of third grade, has undiagnosed SLD in the area of reading. We show how educators at Tess's school collaborate in the purposeful use of assessment to inform instruction before and after Tess's diagnosis of SLD, highlighting traditional and innovative assessment techniques along the way.

This chapter summarizes issues related to the accurate and timely identification of students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBDs) as well as identifying need, planning interventions, and monitoring outcomes. First, we describe ongoing issues and concerns with accurate (e.g., minimization of false positives and false negatives) and timely (e.g., improved service delivery by being more responsive to students in need of special education) identification of students with emotional disturbance (ED). ¹ Next, we describe general assessment methods and considerations that may contribute to improved service delivery. We close this chapter with a discussion of the critical role that accurate and timely identification plays in the provision of opportunity and the attainment of free appropriate public education (FAPE) mandates.

The education of students with intellectual disability, like all students, is influenced by assessments. For students with intellectual disability, assessment is used to evaluate individuals as having an intellectual disability (e.g., intellectual functioning assessments and adaptive behavior assessments), as well as to guide instruction and making decisions about what to teach. Throughout this chapter, the authors present assessments related to the determination of individuals having intellectual disability as well as ones that inform, guide, or evaluate instruction for students. In addition to presenting traditional assessment options for students with intellectual disability, the chapter also presents some innovative options for determining what to teach students with intellectual disability.

Assessing learning outcomes for students who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing presents ongoing challenges given the largely verbal nature of classrooms and the presentation of information. Educators should carefully consider several factors when assessing their students who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. Those factors include, but are not limited to: the format of the assessment, the format in which the student is expected to respond, classroom acoustics, as well as how to continue monitoring learning outcomes based on classroom instruction.

Assessment techniques for students with visual impairments (that is, those who are blind or have low vision) are designed to meet their unique learning needs. Considerations for assessment both within the general curriculum and expanded core curriculum (ECC) for students with visual impairments are presented. The roles of educational team members are discussed, especially as related to special education service providers trained to teach students with visual impairments. The heterogeneous nature of the population of students with visual impairments and the importance of assessment as a collaborative process are additional discussion points presented within this chapter for specific consideration.

This chapter provides evidence-based assessment techniques for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An overview of formative and summative assessment, innovative formative assessment strategies for students with ASD, and innovative summative assessment strategies for students with ASD are included. Discussion includes case studies and clear examples of how technology can support the assessment process. Practitioners may combine the assessment supports presented in this chapter because each support addresses more than one characteristic or need.

Assessing learners with extensive support needs has traditionally been rooted in deficit perspectives, in which student incapacities are highlighted. We start this chapter with an overview of this historical view and identify its shortcomings. Next, we identify alternate assessment and progress monitoring as key efforts for shifting the lens from deficit-oriented assessment toward more grade-aligned, inclusive-, and strengths-based strategies. We also identify strategies for comprehensive assessment that can continue this shift in approach. Finally, we conclude with ideas for future directions in assessing learners with extensive support needs.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is unique among areas of eligibility for students with disabilities in federal special education legislation, not in what is assessed, but why the assessment is taking place. If not for the injury, most individuals with TBI would be unlikely to come to the attention of special educators. Few education training programs appear to allocate sufficient attention to the category, so we present background information regarding prevalence, recovery, and outcomes before summarizing advice from the literature regarding assessment of individuals with TBI in schools. Although educators are unlikely to be involved in the initial diagnosis of TBI, they can be important collaborators in promoting recovery or detecting a worsening condition. Almost every assessment tool available to educators is likely to be of value in this endeavor. These include both formal and informal approaches to assessment. Working with individuals with TBI requires sensitivity and compassion.

Dynamic assessment in the educational setting has been shown to offer many benefits for students with speech and language disorders. This chapter highlights the benefits of dynamic assessment and describes the limitations of static assessments. Because dynamic assessment can be implemented in many ways, three scenarios have been designed to provide an overview of some of these variations. Scenario 1 includes a graduated prompt approach for assessing abilities in the production of speech sounds using a standardized dynamic assessment. Scenario 2 includes a graduated prompt approach for assessing the linguistic skills underlying spelling errors. Scenario 3 includes a test-teach-retest approach for determining the presence of language impairment in students who speak a nonmainstream dialect of English. Suggestions for goal setting and increasing dynamic assessment applications for students with speech and language disorders are presented.

In this chapter, we discuss health-related physical fitness and motor development assessments for students with physical disabilities or other health impairments in special education using traditional and innovative techniques. Traditional assessment techniques are those that are more standardized and formalized, while innovative assessment techniques refer to new variations or ways (alternative/authentic) to assess the abilities of students with physical disabilities and other health impairments. According to the United States Department of Education (2009), students with disabilities must be included in State and local assessments. Even though there has been significant growth in numbers, diversity and academic orientation of persons with physical disabilities, assessments practices have largely remained the same over the years. Adopting innovative pedagogies and emerging innovative assessment techniques may address some unmet needs of current students with disabilities faced with assessment biases.

In this chapter, I expand on ideas about assessment originally put forward by Federico Waitoller and I in recent articles about a curriculum design that cross-pollinates elements of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The purpose of our original work was to address the intersection of racism and ableism in education and to position disability as an identity worth sustaining at the intersection of other forms of difference such as race and national origin. I discuss problematic legacies with the ways in which assessments have functioned to stratify and sort people along racial and ability hierarchies, and place educators in powerful positions of appraisal with consequences for students' belonging and learning in schools. Finally, I articulate additional elements and features of assessment that is designed to counter these legacies while positioning Black, Indigenous, and students of color (BISOC) with disabilities as capable and knowledgeable, along with examples drawn from the literature on CSP, UDL, and research methods for data collection with students with disabilities and diverse racial memberships and communicative repertoires.

Assessment is used to describe the process of gathering information to make judgments about how well someone has performed, how much progress has been made, and how much potential someone has. In other words, gathering information and forming judgments are both indispensable to good teaching. Educational institutions, government agencies, and professional associations are placing increasing emphasis on assessing performance in relevant areas of their domains. In this chapter, several issues important to the establishment of appropriate assessment procedures and the potential uses of both traditional and innovative assessment techniques are discussed. Finally, the limitations of traditional assessment techniques are considered, followed by the future perspectives on assessment techniques.