Dates of Project:: 01-01-04 through 12-31-08
Conducted in collaboration with:
University of Texas at Dallas (Dr. Robert Stillman) California State University-Northridge (Dr. Deborah Chen)
St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital/Columbia University (Dr. Harvey Mar) National Family Association for Deaf-Blind
Funding Source: U.S. Department of Education
SUMMARY
Quality assessment establishes a foundation for an appropriate education. Children who are deafblind are often labeled "difficult to test", implying that the fault lies with the children, as opposed to the instruments used to test them. Assessments developed for children without disabilities are unlikely to be useful for children who experience dual sensory impairments, although they are often used to assess them. Assessments developed for children with vision or hearing impairments or for children with developmental disabilities may have some applicability, but are unlikely to be completely appropriate without adaptations. Some assessments have been developed specifically for children who are deafblind: these, however, are not likely to be supported by extensive reliability or validity studies, nor are they typically accompanied by "normative" data. If we question the quality of the assessments conducted on children who are deafblind, then we must also question the quality of the educational decisions and the instructional programs that are based upon those assessment efforts.
The goals of this project are: to identify the instruments used to assess children ages 2-8 who are deafblind and the purposes for which they are used; to conduct validation studies on instruments that are used to generate instructional goals and to monitor student progress; to replicate the validation studies in multiple sites; and to produce final products that summarize the descriptive and outcome data generated by these studies, translating the data into recommendations for the use of specific assessment instruments for children demonstrating specific demographics and characteristics. The assessment instruments to be validated will be ones that address communicative/social development and cognitive development. Project results are expected to promote high quality assessment of children who are deafblind and the generation of appropriate educational goals related to communication, social and cognitive development.
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©2000 by Charity Rowland and Philip Schweigert
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