Intellectual Assessment

The Special Education team for learning disabilities will test the student. These students have shown signs of continuous problems with interventions in place. Psychologist, psychiatrist, and any other testing will be conducted with parental consent have evaluated the student. Parents will be mandated to attend all assessment evaluations and the team shall review the findings for referral back to tier two or upgrade student to tier four for special educational services based on educational or problematic behaviors.

Darrow’s article was easy to read and focused on the importance of how to teach deaf students. Although I enjoyed reading it, the writer lacked to inform how students with hearing losses can differ and how this can

Selected papers that presented A or B strengths of evidence addressing the comparison between HA or CI in the pediatric population with prelingual deafness.

Formal standardized tests or screens that are used for children whose mother tongue is not English are often not very helpful for the following reasons

Placing Serge in special education classrooms without administrating the test in his native language demonstrated how the test is invalid. The assessment did not accurately measure if he has a learning disability. Serge could have had difficulty understanding the questions, which gave him no other choice but to take estimated guesses. If Serge was placed in a general education classroom he would have still needed additional support in learning English. The placement of Limited English Proficiency (LEP) program would have been helpful, but he would have needed additional support to meet his learning needs.

The instrument asks teachers to score from -5 to +1 each of the 36 behaviors in the following listening conditions: noise, quite, ideal, multiple inputs, auditory memory sequencing, and auditory attention span. Scores are analyzed and interpreted as pass or risk. Students who got an average score of risk on any listening conditions are referred for further evaluation. Average risk scores in auditory memory sequencing and auditory attention span may indicate learning disabilities.

Analyzed below are the two journal articles about special education assessments entitled, Predictors of Assessment Accommodations Use for Students Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing from the Journal of Educational Research & Policy Studies (Cawthon & WurtzBest, 2010) and A Methodology for Assessing the Functions of Emerging Speech in Children with Developmental Disabilities from the Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis (Parten, et al, 2005). The analysis revolves around the following areas: nature of research, summary, critique, personnel, future practice, and future research.

During an informal assessment of articulation skills, Antone's speech was highly intelligible and judged to be within the average range and adequate for communication. Therefore, no formal testing was needed. An informal assessment of Antone's conversational speech did not reveal the presence of any dysfluencies. The results of this evaluation indicated that Antone has overall language skills that range from mildly delayed to within the average range. Expressive language skills are within the average range. Receptive language is a weak area for him and he performed better on comprehension tasks in the morning than in the late afternoon. On one assessment (OWLS-2) administered at the end of the school day he was highly distracted and received a receptive language score in the severe range. However, the CELF-5 was administered a few days later in the morning over two sessions, and Antone performed better on this assessment with repetition and encouragement to respond. His scores on the CELF-5 were in the normal range for both overall language and receptive language. Antone's Articulation, Voice, and Fluency were judged to be adequate, and oral peripheral exam indicated structures and functions of the oral cavity were adequate for speech (Ex. 6F).

The children went through many evaluations, some included comprehensive, expressive, auditory discrimination and phonological evaluations. Some of the evaluations,

The term “hearing impaired” has a negative view towards the Deaf community and should be avoided. In the past this was an acceptable term to use because it was thought to be politically correct, but in present time this is not the case. The term “impaired” focuses solely on what a Deaf individual is unable to do and implies that the impairment of not being able to hear needs to be fixed. It also implies that being anything but “hearing” is not acceptable and that Deaf individuals are at a societal disadvantage. Deaf individuals do not believe that they are at a disadvantage nor do they believe that their deafness is an impairment. Therefore, this term should not be used all together due to the negative connotation on the Deaf community and Deaf individuals.

As a result of later identification of hearing loss, the average deaf or hard-of-hearing student graduates from high school with a significantly lower reading level compared to their hearing peers (Yoshinaga-Itano, Sedey, Coulter, & Mehl, 1998). Therefore, a protocol to screen all infants before six months of age is important for optimal speech and language development. However, Bess and Paradise (1994) challenged the effectiveness of implementing universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS), stating previous studies lacked extensive research, thus causing limitations of such protocol. After the objections made by Bess and Paradise (1994), Yoshinaga-Itano et al. (1998) developed a study which compared language abilities in children whose hearing loss was identified early or later in life. Children who were deaf and hard-of- hearing were divided into two groups based upon the age when their hearing loss was identified.

There is still a great deal to learn concerning the reading level of Deaf students, but we also see great progress compared to just a several years ago. Researchers have discovered that Deaf children do not have a cap on their ability to read, like once believed, and though Deaf students often trail their hearing counterparts, the reasons behind this are now coming into the light. Thanks to research, we now know that the approach to teaching Deaf students needs to be changed, as our previous methods have proved fruitless. With better technology, and the common practice of screening newborns for hearing loss, Deaf babies are now more likely to receive the interventions they need. The research already supports early language exposure, and now

In the school setting there are many factors that could influence assessment results. This is especially true when working with hearing-impaired children. Most of the hearing impaired children I see display language, and visual motor skill deficits which affect their performance in the classroom. Additionally, delayed acquisition of certain developmental milestones and behavioral problems are seen in these students. We use a combination of observation and formal assessments. The VMI is used most frequently, and was selected based on our treatment population, to reduce bias in our assessment results. Although we do our best to avoid bias, there are still several factors that could affect the validity of our results. In addition to factors surrounding

This study was set forth to find out whether the association of hearing loss with subnormal cognitive testing piece persists when nonverbal cognitive tests of memory and attention are used. The authors predict normal performance of participants with hearing loss on the tests of memory and attention.

My personal philosophy of assessment consists of several components. The first component is that both formative and summative assessment belong in the classroom. The second component is that, although teachers should teach what is on the STAAR tests, they should try to avoid just “teaching to the test” the entire year. I also believe that different forms of assessments should be used throughout the year. Finally, I believe that assessments should always be structured in a way that is fair to the students, and addresses all learning styles. Overall, tests belong in the classroom, but should not be the focus of instruction and should be fair for all students.