Question

What are some of the weaknesses in assessments of young children with disabilities? How can these difficulties be overcome?

Answer 1

What are some of the weaknesses in assessments of young children with disabilities? How can these difficulties be overcome?

Children needing special assistance are the most difficult to asses. There may be a number of disabilities that these children may be having. The range of disabilities include:

• Cognitive impairments
• Motor impairments
• Visual impairments
• Auditory impairments
• Emotional impairments

The weakness of the assessment tests in assessing children with these impairments is that the conventionally designed assessment tests only have norms that test the standard intelligence of the children. These tests do not have any provisions for the problems arising due to these impaired employees to. There is no flexibility on the choice of assessment approaches. Also, there are no modifications in measurements. Also, there is a generalised purpose for assessment and it is not custom mailed according to these impairments.

These difficulties can be overcome by developing more specific tests, designed such that these would keep the impairments in mind. Moreover, tests should be designed keeping the risk of impairments in mind, if the risk is moderate, high or low. The tests should be designed such that they would not be misinterpreted in any manner. The assessments need to be less rigid and more flexible so as to assess the true potential on an overall effort and not one a one dimensional direction.