Standard 4 Rationale

Name: Carson Hope Program: Early Childhood Special Education

Name of Artifact: Case Study Report on the Administration the Battelle Developmental
Inventory - 2

Artifact Source: ECS 476 – Assessment for Young Child At-risk for Disability

Instructor Who Originally Evaluated Artifact: Dr. Christine Spence

Introduction to Standard Addressed

Common Core Teaching Standard 6

CCTS standard 6 addresses assessment. The standard states: “the teacher understands and uses
multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to document learner
progress, and to guide the teacher’s on-going planning and instruction.” In other words, the standard
explains the importance for multiple forms of assessment and using said assessment in an intentional
and meaningful way to guide instruction and provide learners with feedback. Indicator 6(t) states that
the educator “is committed to using multiple types of assessment processes to support, verify, and
document learning.” This indicator emphasizes the importance of multiple formats for assessment
and the educator’s understanding of how to choose and use several assessment tools.
Council for Exceptional Children Division of Early Childhood Standard 4
CEC-DEC standard 4 addresses assessment. The standard states: “beginning special education
professionals use multiple methods of assessment and data-sources in making educational decisions.”
In other words, special educators must collect data through multiple forms of assessment, and base
decisions for individual support and group instruction off of assessment results. Skill indicator S4.5
states that special educators “use informal and formal assessment to make decisions about infants
and young children’s development and learning.” Special educators must use formal eligibility and
reevaluation assessments in addition to informal progress monitoring to verify student needs and
ensure goals are being met.

Introduction of Artifact

The entire ECS 476 course focused on assessment for children birth through age five. One of the
many tools we learned about was the Battelle Developmental Inventory-2 (BDI-2). The BDI-2 is one
of two tools Maine uses for eligibility for early childhood special education services. After completing
an Ages and Stages Questionnaire 3 (ASQ-3) screening with a family, I completed four out of five
sections of the BDI-2 with the child. After completing the standardized assessment and scoring the
results, I wrote up a report on the assessment with observations and results on each domain and
made recommendations for the child and family. The four domains I assessed were adaptive,
personal-social, communication, and cognition. I took informal notes on the child’s motor
development.
Rationale

As an early childhood special educator, assessment will be a huge part of my responsibilities so

practicing administering the more widely used of the two global assessments permitted in Maine
special education legislation was an extremely valuable experience. Not only did I assess my case
study child’s global development, but I explored next steps for that child that could then be assessed
themselves. For example, I recommended “exposure to and practice with new concepts” for my focus
child, and the chosen concepts could then be assessed by his general educator as I did “not
recommend any services” for him. Not only did I practice using a formal assessment, but I also
practice informal assessment (i.e. observations) in the areas not formally assessed.