One can use clinical judgement to determine if additional forms of assessment are necessary to gain a clear picture of students’ needs. This may include:

Dynamic Assessment may be used to determine how a student performs on a task given modifications or strategies. The information gained can give us insight into accommodations that may support the student, ways that we can scaffold tasks, and the underlying cause of an area of challenge.

• Environmental modifications:
  • Considerations for background noise, speaker volume, lighting, ability to see speaker, visual distractions, etc.
• Modifications to presentation of information
  • Offering directions in spoken language, signed language, or written language
• Modifications to delivery of response
  • Allowing responses from student by sign language, speaking, sim-com, written language, or symbol based systems (AAC)
• Addition of strategies and supports to scaffold the specific task

Example: Your student is working on grammatical morphemes and is reading aloud from a written passage. After noting initial accuracy, you add a visual cue (cued speech) to emphasize the target morphemes.

Criterion Referenced Assessment refers to an assessment which is not normed on a population or standardized, but can be administered at the start and end of a therapy period to demonstrate progress.

Example: Your student has a goal for increasing vocabulary. You decide to measure their knowledge of affixes by creating a document with specific prefixes and suffixes listed to record the student’s accuracy of defining them. This measure would be used before and after an instructional period to assess growth or mastery of the skill.

Portfolio/Classroom Material Assessment can be used to determine language use in the classroom. Materials may include:

• Presentations
• Essays and written assignments
• Tests
• Vocabulary resources

These materials help shape therapy goals to ensure that services remain individualized and specific to each student’s functional area(s) of need.