Question
I am in a school district that feels that children can only qualify for SLP services with standardized testing. Does IDEIA support the use of authentic assessment?
Answer
It is the responsibility of school-based SLPs to support students' speech-language underpinnings of the general curriculum. In order to support a student, we must first gather information on that student's learning strengths and challenges.
Standardized tests give us information on a student's ability to perform specified and defined tasks in a controlled environment/situation yielding scores that can then be compared to other students in the same age category in order to ascertain that student's relative standing nationally. Standardized tests do not give us information regarding the student's functioning within the general curriculum.
Authentic assessments give us relevant informatin that truly represents how a student functions in the classroom. Authentic assessments also give us information on how a student is affected by different instructional methods and differentiation of instruction. Authentic assessments give us authentic data that truly represents how a student functions in the classroom therefore informing the development of intervention support and instructional programming.
According to IDEIA:
- An evaluation consists of a variety of means to gather information about how your child is developing and how that student learns and functions.
- An evaluation is a process used to gather information that will help determine your child's educational needs.
- Get a complete picture of the child's abilities as a starting point for planning educational services. This includes a picture of how your child is performing academically.
- Not use any one measure or assessment as the single reason for determining whether your child is a child with a disability and for determining a proper educational program for your child.
- Use a variety of assessment methods and activities to gather information about how you child is developing, learning, and functioning.
- May use a process based on your child's response to certain ways of teaching shown by research to be successful with children at your child's age and grade level.
- Is not required to take into consideration whether there is a severe difference between your child's intelligence and achievement in speaking thoughts, writing thoughts, reading, understanding what is heard and read, and solving mathematical problems.
This Ask the Expert was taken from the course entitled: Implementation and Application of Authentic Assessment by Linda Wellman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP and Jo-Anne Prendeville, Ed.D., CCC-SLP.
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Linda Wellman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati. She is the Director on a US DOE Personnel Preparation Grant: Enhancing the Cultural Competence of SLPs Through Preparation of Authentic Assessment. Dr. Wellman works as a school-based clinician as well as teaches courses in language and literacy.
Jo-Anne Prendeville, Ed.D., CCC-SLP is Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati with a specialty in language and literacy. She is the Principal Investigator on a US DOE Personnel Preparation Grant: Enhancing the Cultural Competence of SLPs Through Preparation of Authentic Assessment which has a language and literacy focus.