Assessment tools information

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2003
Assessment tools information
3
Sun, 09-10-2006 - 9:46pm

Renee or anyone else...

Can you point me to a concise reference on the various tests an evaluation team might use? Specifically I'm looking for some more information on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and the Behavior Systems Assessment System for Children.

TIA
Mary

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 09-11-2006 - 12:00am

Do you mean the BASC or behavior assessment scales for children (I think it is called). Hate that test. It is a standard and almost always used but it always makes my kids look bad and oppositional, etc. I would have to do a search to find a good site on the BASC, however, if you like I can look up my kids old ones (I know exactly where they are) and tell you what the different areas are, etc. It is the standard test they do for behavior, I just don't like it because I feel it misrepresents the kids. It doesn't explain the why of the behavior or take thier ASD into account it feels to me.

This year I have actually asked if they could do something which may address a bit more of the ASD stuff rather than a behavior rating scale. In particular one that measured social, self help, etc. They gave Cait and are going to give Mike the Adaptive Behavior Scale (ABS). If your child is young you may want to request the Vineland instead. Both measure a variety of domains such as self help skills, social adjustment, etc. The vineland has one major drawback in that it is very general (norm referenced for ages 0-18 I think) so it isn't very precise but it gives you an idea of where they are delayed.

The Mullen is/was a good basic overall test of functioning at the preschool level. It kind of gives you an overview of where the child is at in general. My kids both had them in preschool. It is also a standard test which is given. It has areas like pre-academic, social skills, etc if I remember correctly. It has been a while and I may really have to dig for that one.

How old of a child? What is the assessment for? Are these the only tests which are being done?

I am guessing this is the assessment plan for your kiddo for the schools and it is for either initial or re-evaluation (can't remember where you are at in the process with schools, sorry). If that is the case then I would likely request more tests. These tests are fine but not sufficient. The Mullen is usually done by a classroom teacher and the BASC is a scale that they either send home a booklet to you to fill out or they ask you questions and they rate the answers. They do no actual testing of the child for that one. If that is the entirity of the eval it seems a bit weak to me. The mullen is OK from the teacher, but the psychologist aught to be doing more evals and hopefully some observations. There should be speech and language evals and observations as well as OT evals and observations.

HTH

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2003
Mon, 09-11-2006 - 10:18am
I actually have all the results back from the initial evaluation and I'm heading to an IEP meeting after private speech therapy this morning. My daughter is in pre-K (age 4). There were a number of tests done, including Vineland and ABS, but Mullen and and oddly described test that may be BASC are the only 2 that were/are still confusing to me on this report. The BASC scores seem to indicate a child that is in the throws of an anxiety disorder and the write does nothing to explain the whatfor and whys of the results. I did a bunch of reading though and see some reasonable links with this result and others so it seems like less of an outlier now. The Mullen scores are still a mystery to me though, especially because I'm not sure how well they match with either my observations or with the observations lister other places in the report. I'm going to send copies of this report to the two doctors that previously diagnosed her and see if they can interpret for me.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 09-11-2006 - 10:37am

What you describe of the BASC is exactly what I meant. The way it is scored it seems like an ASD child is in the throws of some major mental illness. I think the test is more geared toward emotional disturbance/behavior disorder than it is autism.

Cait's 1st grade report from the school stated possible "Conduct Disorder" due to her BASC results. Conduct disorder are typically your criminals, kids who kill animals, etc. It is a very large step beyond Oppositional Defiant Disorder. The ONLY reason Cait was exhibiting those behaviors in her 1st grade class that were consistent with CD on the BASC is because the teacher was horrible for Cait and refused to provide any support or modification. As such Cait shut down and would wander the class. She couldn't get anything completed. She didn't know where to turn her homework in. She began to refuse to go to school and meltdown on the way into school. They didn't take her ASD into account at all. Typically Cait doesn't even fit the criteria for ODD and when I tell anyone of the CD statement they just laugh.

Curious about the Mullen though. You can ask the person who gave the test about the specifics of when your dd took the test. Was she having a good or bad day? Are the results valid? etc. It is a pretty general test over all but when my kids took it I felt it was pretty accurate.

Renee

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