Quiz and Discussion questions from class

Discussion Question: Given the unique needs of those with severe disabilities, and the inability of many testing methods to pinpoint the best route of training, discuss methods of assessment and educational planning which may be less structured, but more useful than traditional norm referenced and criterion referenced tests.

In my work with MR/DD consumers in Wood county we did not use pre-designed assessments in deciding the abilities and talents of the people we worked with. Rather, as a team, we asked the question "what would X like to be able to do that would give him/her independence and pride in his daily living. Often this information came from the clients as well. Often, the goals the clients had would seem impossible. No devised test could say that X could get a particular job or that X could drive a car, but no matter what it was, if we knew it was important to him/her, we would look for ways to make this goal come true. Had we done "testing," no one on the team would have believed that the clients were capable of doing the desired tasks. After looking at the goal, we would figure out every step involved in meeting that goal. Testing could not help with this, either. There are no pre-designed tests which specifically looked for the skills needed in the many unique tasks we set out in teaching our clients. If the goal was to go two blocks away and buy a slushy, testing to see if the client could stack three blocks on top of each other would have been useless. For such a goal we would access the client's ability to walk, cross streets, carry money, ask for a purchase, get change, carry a slushy, walk back home, etc. We would focus solely on these sub-task needs. Anything else would not have been helpful in the situation. For each of the sub-tasks, we would look to see what skills already existed and what training was needed. For some, we would look for similar tasks the client could do and expand from there.

Either way, our clients always amazed us. Testing would not have shown us the true abilities they could develop. Because we taught the steps to their goals, more was accomplished, and the skills learned would expand to other goals. We taught one client to read an analog clock when testing showed he did not recognize any numbers or symbols of time. When we were done, he had met his goal of being able to take his medicine on his own at the appropriate times.

Quiz Question: Define and distinguish between test reliability and test validity. Provide an original example of how issues of test reliability or test validity might influence assessment results when working with a student with severe/multiple disabilities?

Test reliability refers to how consistent a test measures something. Reliability does not concern the content of the test but instead answers such questions as "does the test give the same results each time?" or "do all the questions on the test designed to measure the same trait measure the same trait (which would be evidenced in the scoring)?" Test validity does concern the actual content of a test. Validity questions will ask, "does this test measure the actual skill it is reported to measure?" It is asking if the test is measuring the relevant information to answer the question at hand. Also, one should consider whether a test asks extra irrelevant information. For example, a test measuring a person's ability to identify pictures of boxes will need to be careful in how the answer is given. For a disabled person who can not point straight, a test requiring the student to point to the picture of the box has obvious inherent problems. If the student always points to the left of where she attempts to point (via a visual disability or other physical ailment) the test will be reliable (she will always point to the left of the correct answer) but it will be reliably incorrect. A test measuring one's ability to do math problems concerning math reasoning may not be valid if the student is required to read story problems if the student cannot read well but is good at math. In this case, the student will fail because of his or her lack of reading ability, not a lack of math ability, which the test is supposed to measure. In this case, the test would not be valid because it is measuring reading ability as well as math reasoning. In another example, a test which is designed to measure "math skills" will not be valid if it only measures addition problems. In this case, the content validity falls short because it does not ask a broad enough set of math questions. Conversely, for the math-disabled 12th grader, a test which measures only advanced math may miss the basic addition and subtraction skills the student does possess.

Discussion Question: Describe the importance of ecological assessments when you are meeting the unique needs of students with a severe disability as it relates to functional communication skills.

An ecological assessment is an assessment performed in the natural environment. Not only this, but it considers functioning in that natural environment as its goal. A full assessment will look at all five domains of the natural environment (domestic skills, leisure skills, the community, vocational skills and school). Assessing in these environments will assist in developing instructional plans to help students survive in these same environments. Also, because these environments compromise all aspects of daily living, focusing on these five areas will assist in giving our consumers skills to use in all of their daily living.

Let's say you are assessing a student who is having trouble paying attention in class. Such an assessment must take place in the actual school environment experienced by the student.

<a bit off track>
Those with severe disabilities (as well as all other students/organisms/everything not typically found in a beaker) are best assessed within their natural environment. When discussing behavior, it must be understood that the behavior itself is often in response to anything and everything happening around them. The teacher may complain that Johnny is constantly looking out the window. In an assessment room, where the school psychologist has a window view of a brick wall, Johnny may pay attention, never looking out the window, but rather looking at the school psychologist, as this is a new person who has captured Johnny's interest. However, this finding would not negate the fact that in class, where Johnny is supposed to be watching the teacher, Johnny is looking out the window. It would be possible that the teacher's window has a view of a busy street, and Johnny likes to look out when he notices big trucks coming by. Unless Johnny were to be assessed in this natural classroom situation, the revelation of what Johnny was actually doing (looking at big trucks going by) would not have been found. Nor would have been found a possible reward item for Johnny and his teachers and family for possible future intervention plans (toy trucks, trips to truck shows, etc.). Depending on Johnny's disability, he may have not been able to tell you why he was looking out that window. Observation in the natural environment would answer the question.
</a bit off track>

Further, when looking at the communication skills of Johnny, ecological assessments in all areas will be greatly beneficial (sorry for taking so long to get to the meat of this question). In the example above, looking out the window was the only way Johnny knew to express his interest in trucks. If Johnny had been taught other methods of communication, he may have been able to use one of these methods to explain to the teacher why he wanted to look out the window. Possible sources of communication in this situation could have been picture cards with a happy face to represent "like" which he had been taught to hold up in front of something he liked. Johnny could have held up that card whenever a truck went by – the teacher may have caught on without trouble. If Johnny could be taught to use picture cards, he could have cards for other situations as well. Such situations could involve cards to show when he is hungry, needs to use the restroom, wanting to go outside to play, wanting to buy something, etc. Looking at Johnny in each of these situations would enable his caregivers to consider ways to give Johnny communication skills applicable to the various situations of his life.

As a note, in my work with MR/DD clients, for those who had difficulty being understood verbally, picture cards were a great source of communication. If thought out, pictures can represent almost any communicative need.

Quiz Question: What are ecological inventories and why are they useful when engaging in assessment and educational planning for students with severe/multiple disabilities? Provide a brief description of the 5 “domains of adult functioning” that are described in the reading. Pick one of the 5 domains and provide an original example of skills that might be important to assess within this domain.

Ecological inventories are informal assessments that require teachers to consider areas of instruction arranged in domains of adult functioning or skill categories. These five skills areas are:

1. The Domestic Domain (includes skills such as housekeeping, yard work, cooking, etc.)
2. The leisure Domain (having fun in the community, home, or at school)
3. The Community Domain (Safety in the community – crossing the street, not talking to strangers, etc.)
4. The Vocational Domain (work skills for the future)
5. The School Domain (the skills needed to survive in school – following the rules, locker use, appropriate behavior with peers, etc.)

In working with students with severe disabilities, one should look at all of these skill areas to better develop curriculum which will assist the student in learning how to survive in all the situations these skill areas represent. For the severely disabled, simply teaching the 'three Rs" won't benefit them in the real world. They must be taught how to function in that real world.

In looking at the domain, "domestic," it would be important to teach the student the importance of keeping a clean house, how to dress himself, cooking (yes, anyone can be taught to at least participate in the cooking process.) etc. With these skills, it will be more likely that the student will eventually be able to live independently. If these skills were to be not taught, as they are not traditional school subjects, the student would not be able to live independently. In my work with the MR/DD, I discovered that the schools they attended often had kitchens, laundry rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, etc. as classrooms. This way, they could directly teach the students how to function in the home environment

Discussion Question: Regarding the collection of data, discuss the issues that may determine the frequency of collecting data. Secondly, discuss the importance and/or benefits of converting data into graphs.

Issues that may determine the frequency of data collection often include limitations in available time and resources. While it would be ideal to continuously collect all information on rate and duration of behaviors, this is not feasible in our world. However, there are several viable alternatives to continuous data collection. It is possible to obtain a fairly accurate representation of a behavior's frequency by sampling behavior for a specified period of time. Additionally, duration of behaviors can be recorded in these time periods. Data can be used to calculate percentage of on or off task behaviors, rate of behaviors, and percentage of behaviors shown compared to the number of opportunities. Data collection such as this can be recorded by the classroom teacher when prompted (such as through the Motivaider™) and does not take a full time observer. While it is always best to record a full record of behavior occurrences, partial time sampling can provide useful data which will show the trend changes which will hopefully occur with proper interventions.

Studies show that data that has been converted into graphs allow teachers to more easily detect trends of progress and to make more effective program decisions. Positive trends in graph form are reinforcing to the continuation of the intervention.

Quiz Question: List and briefly describe the 8 of the eight measurement procedures discussed in the text. List one of the most prominent advantages and disadvantages of each?

1. Permanent Products (Direct Measurement of lasting and concrete results of a target behavior). Advantage – does not require constant observation. Disadvantage – The behavior in question must have physical, tangible results in order to be measured.
2. Frequency Recording (The number of occurrences of a behavior in a specified period of time). Advantage – May be converted to rate so the time periods don't have to be exact. Disadvantage – Does not give useable results on behaviors that are of varying durations.
3. Percentage (The number of correct behaviors over the number of opportunities given for the correct behavior). Advantage – Good for behaviors which have varying opportunities. Disadvantage – Cannot distinguish the number of opportunities from the score.
4. Rate (The frequency of behavior and it's relation to time expressed as a ratio). Advantage – Useful when the number of opportunities varies across sessions. Disadvantage – Cannot tell the total time of the rated period.
5. Duration (Total amount of time a behavior occurs in a specified observation). Advantage – Gives the exact amount of time a behavior occurred overall. Disadvantages – Must constantly monitor. Does not show if the time was continuous.
6. Task Analysis (Measuring performance on each step involved in completing a behavior). Advantage – gives information on which steps a student struggles in and to what degree the student struggles in these steps. Disadvantage – very time consuming for a classroom teacher; best used in settings where one person can devote him/herself to the student and the task analysis.
7. Interval Recording (An observation session is divided into equal intervals and the occurrence of the behavior within each interval is recorded. Can be done in whole or partial intervals.). Advantage - Useful for behaviors that do not have specified start/stop times and vary in length. Disadvantage – Partial interval recording will not show increases of behavior within intervals, yet whole interval recording involves constant attention throughout the interval.
8. Time Sampling (Similar to interval recording, but longer time periods are used and behavior is only observed at the end of the intervals). Advantage – Interval times can be random, enabling the classroom teacher to better conduct the observation while teaching the rest of the class. Disadvantage – This method may not capture low frequency or duration behaviors, and thus will provide an underestimate of such behaviors.

Discussion Question: Explain the importance of having both ungraphed and graphed data for analysis.

As discussed in class and in the book, graphed data is useful in that it gives a quick visualization of a student's performance. Teachers and parents like graphs because they are easy to understand and don't require a lot of time in interpretation. Others think graphs are "fancy" and believe we have put work into our presentation of data. This is respected, resulting in a higher teacher buy in.

On the other side, and in other situations, graphed data may not be significant in showing all the detail in a situation. While graphed data gives an overview, it does not always give the specifics. For example. We may know that Johnny threw up four times each day of the week, as it shows on the graph. However, ungraphed original data may show that Johnny did not throw up unless he skipped lunch, and then, he only threw up in the early afternoon. From that data, we could postulate a reason that Johnny throws up (not eating upsets Johnny's stomach and causes him to throw up the remains of his breakfast – picture it if you are having trouble understanding, ;)) With ungraphed data, you can chart out many more specifics of a situation than you can when you must place information on a graph.

Clearly, both have their purpose.

Quiz Question: What are aim lines and what are trend lines? How are aim lines and trend lines helpful when trying to understand and interpret AB graphs?

An aim line is calculated from data gathered during baseline (It is calculated in advance of the intervention). The line goes from the original level of student performance and is drawn towards the criterion goal for the end of the intervention period. More or less, it gives a visual aid as to where the student should be if the intervention is going well.

A trend line is the line shows the average of the student's actual performance during the time observed. Thus, a downward slope shows the behavior decreased (or knowledge decreased); and upward slope shows that the measured behavior increased, and a flat line shows that there was no change over the period.

AB graphs simply show the performance during baseline and during a single intervention. The trend and aim lines assist in showing actual performance and targeted performance during the intervention period.

For those who haven't discovered, both Excel and Chartdog (http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/tools/chartdog/chartdog.shtml) will assist in creating trend lines.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Discuss the importance of record reviews as a preliminary step when conducting a comprehensive educational assessment (for a student with severe/multiple disabilities). What are some important thoughts to keep in mind when conducting a record review (hint: relevance of information).

The foremost reason to conduct a records review is to gain information of the known history of a student, including what has been done concerning the student's needs. As is often said, don't waste time re-inventing the wheel. This will give the reviewer a sense of the student, his or her known abilities, problem areas, and hopefully, successes (though, there is no guarantee that past interventions and successes have been documented or placed within the student's cum. file, as often proves true in my practicums [one page cum. files]).

When conducting a review, keep in mind the issue for which the student has been referred. Look for information relevant to that information. For example, if a student has been referred concerning problem behaviors in reading group, it is not necessary to research the student's math skills. However, this does not mean we should ignore everything that doesn't seem to be directly related to the student's behaviors. In the case of the reading teacher's complaints, not only should behavior problems be considered, but so too should the student's reading abilities, writing abilities, and any other skills that are expected or taught in the reading class. Whether or not the student had similar troubles in similar classes in the past could be clues to the cause, as well. If the student has enjoyed and done well in reading for 7 years, but suddenly has problems in his eighth grade year, a teacher difference may be partially responsible for the sudden development of problem behaviors. If the student has suddenly developed problem behaviors in all his classes, look at changes that may have occurred in the home areas or social areas. Does the student have a new custody situation? Has the student moved recently?

All in all – THINK. Each and every situation is going to be unique. As a professional, you won't have time to fully investigate the full history of each and every student. Consider the referral, know what you are looking for, and go there first. This beats blind grabs for information in the long run.

QUIZ QUESTION: What is the difference between social validity and empirical validity? Provide an example to illustrate the difference.

Basically, Empirical Validity is straight from the text, er, I mean, is the extent to which a behavior will contribute to an improvement in an individual's eventual outcome. This concept refers to whether or not the intervention and its goals will be valuable in the present and future life of the student. What is empirically valid for one person may not be for another. For an oversimplified example… teaching a student how to ride a bus will do him or her little good if that student does not need to ride a bus in his or her every day life. Empirical validity looks at the person's future, as well as the person's current environments. The eventual focus is often independence.

Social validity, on the other hand, also unique to each situation, is the value of behavior change for an individual as evaluated by important others in that person's life or by the individual. For example. For another oversimplified example, may be personally valuable for someone to be able to eat tons and tons of candy, but it is very unlikely that this goal would be valuable to the others in this person's life. This goal would lack social validity, as would any intervention designed to lead towards this goal. To obtain social validity for a student, talk to his parents, teachers, etc. to find out what the group believes the student needs to focus on most.

Though the two are very similar, it is best to think of social validity as a group's beliefs about what is currently best for the student and empirical validity as what is best for the future of the student. Often, the one will also be the other.

To give an example of a socially valid intervention that does not hold strong empirical validity, consider a student who receives an intervention focused on teaching the student to raise his hand in class in school. If that student is in 11th grade, the intervention may be useful in keeping his teachers sane, but it will do him very little good in the real world. If you raise your hand to talk in most situations outside of high school, you're going to get funny looks.

QUIZ QUESTION: Briefly describe the four methods of Repeated Opportunity assessment.

One discrete response: Massed or distributed trials – this method measures a single response across various settings. The book example is of measuring a pointing response (to show what the child wants) in various settings to see how well generalized the pointing response is.

Response class assessment – a response class is a set of different responses made to the same stimulus. An example would be of the many answers which exist to the question, "what do you want?" It may be that the child will always give a correct answer when he wants to go outside or play a game, but just whines and points when he or she wants a particular food.

Functionally related response cluster: ICS Assessment – This method uses skills, such as motor skills or language skills and combines them to do similar tasks. For example, sharing a bowl of popcorn would involve grabbing your popcorn, handing the bowl to another, and verbalizing that you want to share, or that you want more. This same cluster of activities could be taught in the similar situation of playtime, where a child is to take a toy from a box and share the box with the other children.

Frequency counts of naturally occurring responses – these responses are natural and self initiated. Data from this type of repeated opportunity assessment will tell you if the child is mastering skills and using them in his or her everyday activities.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: If a student has mastered a task in the classroom, does that mean the student can move on to new tasks? Explain your reasoning.

Unless the same skill is mastered in daily living skills outside of the classroom, it has not generalized and thus has not been mastered. Making the skill generalize to real life situations is most important. It would be better to continue focusing on the one skill, working to generalize it to other situations/times/etc. than to move on, developing a large repertoire of skills which are only viable in the classroom.

Filed under: EDC 571 Biological Bases of Behavior (I and II)
Copyright: December, 2004 - David Profitt