As a Head Start employee, I believe 100% in testing a child holistically. I also believe that we have to develop holistically as well. I think we need to have as much knowledge about a child's emotional health as well as cognitive abilities. When we talked about stressors for children previously, that gave us examples right there of the many things that can affect a child's cognitive abilities. We as adults must think about when we are going through some type of stress, are we really able to focus? Are we thinking about what particular thing is bothering us or concentrating on the workshop we are in or a training that we are sitting in? Kids have that same problem. It's hard to focus if you're thinking about the fact that last night the police burst into your home and took your mom to jail. Therefore, I think emotional assessments are very necessary. I looked into assessments in Australia and found that Primary school is for children ages 5-12 and children are assessed beginning at age 7 with a NAPLAN test. I also found a program called Reach for the Stars that does assessment of children for the schools. The tests Reach for the Stars will perform are: Sensory, Developmental, Social Emotional, Motor, Participation Assessments, and Adaptive behavior/cognition assessments. Most of these are self explanatory, but I wondered about the participation assessment so I dug deeper and found this is a school function assessment that evaluates and monitors a students performance of functional tasks and activities at school. The adaptive behavior assessments is a test that assesses disorders of planning, organization and problem solving. This test is assessed beginning at age 16. I hope that I never have to take that test. I will flunk out for sure! I am so unorganized!
www.psychcorp.com.au/otguide
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_school#Australia
Susann- I agree that children need to be assessed to gather information. I think a childs emotional status is a great concern when assesssing a child.
ReplyDeleteSusann-
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the fact that you pointed out children do experience stress similar to adults and these emotional reactions affect their testing performance. In last few years, I witnessed some students' performance being affected by external stressors. It did make the differences.
Also, test anxiety is now a big issue among children. I think it is truly important that we, as adult and professionals, become aware of triggers and any other external factors that may influence children's test performance.
A disorder planning test is new to me... Glad you mentioned that!
Thanks!
Susann, how true that a child's stress has a major impact on their learning. I am very aware of the stress some of the students at my school are under. I had one boy in a class where probably 80% of the students either had a babysitter or the mother at home after school to help with homework. This child's mom just died. He was passed from relative to relative, never sleeping in the same place two nights in a row. His teacher was concerned because he wasn't coming in with his homework completed. I made it clear to her, that homework was last on his list of priorities. We, myself, the principal and guidance counselor, worked with the teacher to plan accomodations and support for him.
ReplyDeleteHi Susann,
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting the different types of assessments that are performed on children. I also believe that a child should be assessed at an early age so that the child can receive the best quality of education.