1. Assessment in Cognitive Abilities in Early Childhood By: Ria Jackson

2. Overview As early childhood has evolved so has the assessing of the young child cognitive ability. Cognitive ability in early childhood is assessed in many ways. In early childhood most assessments focus on memory, perception, expressive language, thinking skills, reasoning, listening comprehension, fine motor, mathematics, and most importantly school readiness.

3. History of Assessing Young Children In the beginning of early childhood education many psychologist will observe children in control play environments. John Dewey, Arnold Gesell, and Lewis Terman all made contributions to the study of measurement in young children.

4. Key Features Although the study and measurement of young children has evolved from the development of standardized test and the beginning of Head Start or any other government funding programs. Due to laws such as Public Law 94-142 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and Public Law 99-457 this law includes infants as school age children. Early childhood educators are still moving towards meaningful cognitive assessments.

5. Key Features In assessing children the key features to examine will be what are you trying to measure? Are you measuring the student memory skills or expressive language? Before assessing the child establish a relationship and review your material thoroughly. Also which assessments are you going to use to measure any type of cognitive ability. One cognitive assessment we know is the Differential Ability Scale, which measure verbal comprehension as well as school readiness.

6. Nut and Bolts There are many assessments that measures a child’s cognitive ability such as the DAS, Stanford Binet as well as the Dial (which is used as a screener) These assessment measure the child’s cognitive ability such as memory skills, language and verbal comprehension. During these assessment the child is asked to complete a number of task based on his or her age equivalency.

7. Differentially Ability Scale This assessment is used in the early childhood as early as two years and six months old. This assessment has a number of subtest based on cognitive ability. A typical three year old will have to answer questions that include working memory, processing speed, verbal, spatial and school readiness. For example administering a auditory short-term memory assessment a child will have to recall digits in sequence or in reverse order. In other assessment which assess long- term storage and retrieval an examiner presents 20 objects on card; child recalls as many as possible; three trials.

8. Developmental Delay During Early Childhood educators use this time to observe how the child develops. Many educators are keen into how the child develops and observes the child’s cognitive abilities. In some cases children are assessed because parents or teachers may have a concern about the development of the child. After this is expressed, the school psychologist may begin assessing the child based on the teachers concerns.

9. Developmental Delay After the process of measuring the child’s cognitive ability in order to serve the student based on their needs the student is labeled as development delay rather a diagnosis of autistic, speech and language, or any other educational diagnosis. During this time the student will receive services based on their needs, however after Kindergarten the student goes through a re-evaluating process to measure if he or she still qualifies for these services.

10. Early Intervention Early intervention is strongly recommended during early childhood. In early childhood the earlier the student weaknesses are measured the earlier interventions can be put in place. Example A.B.A- Children who are development delay may have another diagnosis of Autism during the time in early childhood these children are taught functioning skills such as beginning social skills and thinking skills.

11. Bias in Early Childhood Assessments Gender, race, and economic status are key components in assessing young children. In assessing children of different backgrounds some task that are required for the child to know may not have been acquired yet because of ones cultural surroundings. In early childhood education researchers have discovered that although a child may seem development delay during an initial observation and a cognitive genius during another. Exposure plays a key role in considering assessments for a child.

12. Validity Assessments are accompanied by information regarding their validity and reliability. Validity information, indicating whether the test really measures what it is supposed to measure. Reliability information, indicating the test’s ability to produce the same result when or if the test will be given again.

13. Validity In result of assessing with proper administration, the results are meant to be interpreted by individuals knowledgeable in what the norms given in the manual mean, and how to best compare children to such norms. Even though most observations in early childhood are administered during social settings, assessments must be administered in controlled testing conditions in order for results to be valid.

14. Resources Bowers, S Phd. Assessing young children: what’ s old what’s new and where are we headed? Early childhood news(2008). Bowers, S Phd. Assessing young children: what’ s old what’s new and where are we headed? Early childhood news(2008). Appl, D.J. (2000) Clarifying the preschool assessment process: Traditional Practices and alternative approaches, Early childhood education journal volume 27 No. 4 Worthman,S. (2011)Assessment in early childhood education. Demicran,H.O.,& Olgan.R(2011) Assessment in early childhood education commonly used curriculum models and turkish curriculum. The online journal of new horizon in education volume 1 issue 3 https://www.pakeys.org/docs/earlychildhoodassessment.pdf Kranzler, J. H., & Floyd R. G. (2013). Assessing intelligence in children and adolescents: A practical guide. New York: Guilford. Elliot, C.D The differential ability scales-second edition

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