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Technology-based Assessment in Special Education
This notion, with support by the Technology-Related Assistance for
Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1988, focuses on assessment tools
that move away from norm-referenced intelligence and academic
achievement instruments to a more holistic assessment utilizing
technological advances.
We know, for example, that the ability to think logically, to use stored
knowledge to solve problems, to reason by analogy, and to extend or
extrapolate knowledge to new situations are indicators of intelligence.
Gardner suggests there are seven distinct intelligences unique to
humans: language, logic (math analysis), spatial representation, musical
thinking, use of the body, understanding others and understanding
self.8 These are all intelligences we can observe and investigate, but
how do we go about measuring them?
Knowing more about what to measure also includes behavioral
correlates of social competence in individual students during evaluation.
For instance, a child's ability to "read" social situations is a prerequisite
to other skills that lead to social competence. Children with learning
disabilities make poor discriminations when presented with social and
affective stimulus events.
Historically, assessment has been a "weak link" in the chain of
conceptualization, training and child performance of socially competent
behaviors.9 The most popular methods for such assessments have been
peer nomination and ratings, teacher and parent ratings, and direct
observations or ratings of a child's behavior during real-life sessions or
from videotapes. These provide global measures of a child's generic
social competence and teacher/peer acceptance.10
Social competence, as defined by McFall, is a summative term that refers
to the quality or adequacy of overall performance on a particular task
within a social context as judged by others (teachers, parents, peers).11
The psychometric characteristics of these approaches are generally
adequate for some assessment purposes—screening, identification and
program evaluation, for example—but they do not clearly identify a
child's social competence problems or their source(s).12
Time Factors in Assessment
For many educators, the quality of special education depends on the
quality of assessment information and its timely application in the
classroom, school and community to prescribe practices and monitor
programs and services.
For instance, the most widely used form of assessment has been, and
still is, direct observation of the student in a classroom setting. While
effective in referring for special education, it is only one method and
should be used as part of the holistic evaluation.13
