1

CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS

Child Assessment - Screeners & Informal Assessments

Nauras Faiyazuddin

Louisiana State University

 2
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
Child Assessment - Screeners & Informal Assessments

Assessing and evaluating infants and young children can be met with many concerns. The

objective is to eliminate these concerns and to establish methods, practices, and set criteria to

serve the needs of individual children. In this way, child assessments help to create a

comprehensive plan for evaluation. Although, no matter the assessment used, there is not one

single method for gathering information because it is very insufficient. This is because each

assessment “Has strengths and limitations; moreover, a single method provides only one portion

of what needs to be known about a child. A variety of strategies provides a comprehensive

picture of the child’s development and learning from different perspectives, such as that of

parents, teachers, and specialists” (Wortham & Sue, 2012, p. 34). That is why there are many

types of child assessments that are administered because these assessments should be meaningful

and focus on individual rates of development, interests, and learning styles observed in the child.

This creates room for recommended practices to develop in order for there to be an action plan

created after data has been collected. Without assessing and collecting data, decisions could not

be made to help grow a child’s learning and development, hence the number of assessments and

screeners available. Administering assessments and collecting data help teachers and parents

make informed and appropriate decisions about children’s development and education.

Screener: Ages and Stages

General Description

The ASQ is a developmental screening tool that is answered by a parent or caregiver. The

parent or caregiver complete the questionnaire and it is then scored by an educational

professional afterwards. The screening allows for intervention if needed, detects delays early,
 3
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
improves a child’s outcomes, and is encouraged by educational organizations. ASQ is “Used to

accurately identify children who may be at risk for developmental delays” and is “Designed to

encourage parent involvement and education” (Paul, 2014). This screener can be completed very

easily. Once given to a parent, all they have to do is answer the questions about their child and

either say “yes, sometimes, or not yet,” and their job is done from there. After, a professional

will score the questionnaire using the score sheet and then interprets the results in order to see if

a follow up is needed. The questionnaire can be scored with a “simple 0, 5, and 10 point scoring

system” and “Scores from the 5 areas are transferred to the Information Summary page,” where

the scores will be compared to standardized cutoffs and followed up (Paul, 2014). There are 5

developmental areas and those are: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving,

and personal-social.

Reliability & Validity

ASQ accurately identifies delays that a child might be having. It is a “Low-cost, reliable,

and rigorously tested” questionnaire that has many online data management systems (Paul,

2014). The screener has “Proven accurate by new research—highly reliable and valid,” and

allows for “Anytime screening—expanded administration windows so the intervals are seamless

from 1 through 66 months” (Paul, 2014). This means it is fast and easy to score while educating

families and is very parent friendly. More specifically, there has been “New standardization –

based on 18,572 questionnaires for 15,138 children (an exceptionally large standardization

sample),” meaning more data to compare and results to draw from for a child (Paul, 2014). These

samples mirror “the demographic mix of the U.S. population and includes underserved

populations and children of all socioeconomic statuses” (Paul, 2014). This very strong collection

of data improved even further when the 3rd edition of ASQ was created and the reliability results
 4
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
speak for themselves: “Test-retest: 0.92 (excellent) Inter-rater: 0.93 (excellent)” (Paul, 2014).

The validity rates were even excellent at a rate of “0.82 to 0.88” (Paul, 2014). Overall, ASQ is

very much reliable and valid with how well it works not just for the western hemisphere but

around the world.

Summary of Child Assessment

The child that was assessed, scored in the white area which is above the cutoff, and the

child’s development appears to be on schedule. The child’s communication score is a 55, gross

motor is a 60, fine motor is a 55, problem solving is a 60, and personal social is a 60 as well (See

Appendix A for the exact scores given.) The child was only technically low in communication

and fine motor because of 1 specific question in each. In the communication section it was the

first question involving repeating directions without help and the child struggled with that a bit.

Because of that, her mother said “sometimes.” In fine motor it was the first question that was

given a sometimes as well, and the question involves whether or not the child goes off tracing on

a line more than three times. Which is why the mother said “sometimes” there and a 5 score was

recorded. But, other than those two lower scores, the child is exceptionally well off and scored

above the standardized cut off. The child’s strengths were in all sections but specifically gross

motor, problem solving, and personal social. There is no follow up action that needs to be taken

at this time. The child will improve in these two minor issues as she grows and develops and are

no signs of concern or delays.

Reflection

ASQ has been under review and updated as the years go on. The screener was designed

in order for skills in a child to be easily observed by parents at home. It proves to be an easy way

for a parent to see what their child is capable of doing at the age they are at. That is why there are
 5
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
many benefits and limitations to the questionnaire. Nonetheless, the screener allowed for results

to be interpreted for the child and allowed for a professional to see if a follow up was needed or

not.

Some benefits of ASQ is how “Fast and easy” to score it is and educated family while

being parent friendly (Paul 2014), ASQ’s strength is that “—it’s easy to share results and talk

about a child’s development,” with a parent (Paul, 2014). It is also specifically administered to

certain months a child is by age in order to cater to set skills only a 1-3-year-old should know

how to do in comparison to a 4-5-year-old. These seamless interval options allow the

questionnaire to be easily adaptable to a child’s age. Another benefit is how the ASQ is broken

up into 5 areas that are important in the development of a child. Each section addresses major

and minor skills that a child should be able to do. This specificity of the questions in each section

allow for follow ups to be possible and directly allows for those issues to be resolved. The

questionnaire pinpoints domains that are essential for a child’s growth. Most parents can

complete the questionnaire in 10-15 minutes, not realizing the amount of important feedback

they are collecting about their child. The questionnaire guides parents easily thought completing

it while also making them aware of where their child should be at. ASQ has many benefits but

does include some limitations.

Some limitations of ASQ include how there is only 3 categories to answer questions: yes,

sometimes, or no. Sometimes each question tells a parent how to classify what a “sometimes,”

means, but at other times it does not. in this way the ASQ should be clearer on when it is

considered a “sometimes” answer for each specific question. Another limitation of ASQ, is how

the intervals do cover many different months, but some of them coincide with others a bit and
 6
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
there could be a better distinction with skills and questions asked. Other than those few

limitations, ASQ delivers quick results and allows for effective feedback to be given to a parent.

The child I scored for the ASQ screener, fell into the white category. This means the

child is well above the cut off and the child’s development appears to be on schedule. The child

needs no follow up and is doing very well for her age. I was able to make this deduction after

considering the total area scores, overall responses, and other considerations, such as

opportunities to practice skills. In this way the child is doing great and is right on schedule with

her development, if not more.

Overall, this screener allowed for the child to receive the extra action she needed if she

needed it. At the moment the child does not have any developmental delays and or needs further

assessments done. The child can hear, talk, move, and think well enough to be socially aware of

her environment, while also performing well academically. The parents of this child do not need

to take any action and do not need to do anything at this time to help their child. There are also

no medical concerns that the child needed to be attended to or tested for. ASQ allowed for all of

this data to be collected and helped to see if an intervention was needed or not.

Informal Assessment: Child Assessment Teaching Strategies Gold (TS Gold)

General Description

GOLD “assesses children’s development and learning across four developmental

domains (social–emotional, physical, language, cognitive) and five content domains (literacy,

mathematics, science and technology, social studies, and the arts)” (Lambert, 2020, p. 5). It also

includes a tenth domain called English Language acquisition. Each domain has a set of

objectives that guide teachers through the assessment process. In total GOLD has 38 objectives
 7
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
and are called ODL. Each dimension under the first 6 domains has a progression associated with

it. Each progression represents a “continuum that enables teachers to relate observable behavior

to expectations for a child’s age/grade. Progressions help teachers and other stakeholders

understand how children are performing relative to developmentally appropriate expectations”

(Lambert, 2020, p. 5). The purpose of any assessment is to make sure that they actually assess

the intended outcomes and GOLD has been designed just to ensure this outcome. Gold’s purpose

is to provide teachers with instructionally relevant information about the children they teach. The

tool is scored by taking the raw scores and then “are calculated from the sum of all the finalized

ratings a teacher made on the progressions under each domain. Raw scores, hence, represent a

child’s current knowledge, skills, and abilities related to a particular domain of development”

(Lambert, 2020, p. 10). At the end of it a child may have up to 6 different raw scores. These raw

scores need to be transformed into scaled scores to measure the amount a child has grown.

Reliability & Validity

This assessment tool has been “designed and externally validated for use as a formative,

developmental, authentic, and criterion-referenced assessment” (Lambert, 2020, p. 7). Reliability

“refers to how consistently a particular construct is measured by an assessment. This consistency

can be measured by examining the internal consistency across items within a scale, the level of

agreement between raters, or the extent to which scores for a child replicate across different

assessments, testing situations, and/ or time points” (Lambert, 2020, p. 23). Reliability is an

important characteristic of the information an assessment provides and is necessary “for the

validity of the information provided by any assessment” (Lambert, 2020, p. 23). In the GOLD

assessment, reliability is evaluated using the “Rasch indices: the person separation index, item

separation index, person reliability, and item reliability” (Lambert, 2020, p. 23). It has been
 8
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
gathered that through this GOLD assessment progress “it is reasonable to expect highly

consistent estimates of item difficulty levels across samples. The person-based reliability

coefficients are outlined below by domain of development” (Lambert, 2020, p. 24). Currently

Teaching Strategies GOLD are valid through support and studies.

Summary of Child Assessment

The child was assessed using TS GOLD in certain domains of development. In particular

those sections are social-emotional, cognitive, and English language acquisition.

Socially/emotionally, the child looks to be having a hard time managing their feelings and or

actions. In particular, the “Balances needs and rights of self and others,” is low and has not met

this well enough (See Appendix B for exact scores). But, overall, the child did well in the

category. Cognitively the child looks to be having problems in: showing flexibility and

inventiveness in thinking, using classification skills, thinking symbolically, and engaging in

sociodramatic play. Those are some of the weaknesses the child experiences in both cognitive

and social/emotional. Lastly, in English language acquisition, the child is very much weak in

writing using conventions. This is an area the child needs an intervention program in place to

help the child grow from this weakness. Other than that, there more strengths in this section than

weaknesses.

Reflection

The TS GOLD instrument represents the developmental and learning expectations for a

given year of life or academic program year. It assesses a child over a long period of time and

tracks their development. GOLD is a formative, developmental, authentic, and criterion

referenced assessment. These are the optimal uses of the assessment and measure the progress
 9
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
children make through a process that emerges naturally. This assessment does have many

benefits and limitations, which can be seen through the child’s summary.

Some benefits of GOLD are how there are current and national samples that are taken in

order to validate the data and the progression of the children. The rating scale categories were

examined “to provide insight into whether teachers use the instrument in the manner in which it

was intended. Rating scale category effectiveness is one way to measure the validity of the

developmental progressions” (Lambert, 2020, p. 19). This allows for the probability of a child

reaching the next step on the developmental progression should increase. Another benefit is how

each domain specifically focusses on major skills a child should be developing as they age. If the

child is not, this is an area of weakness that can be addressed and intervened. Also, the tool

represents a child through the fall, winter, and spring academic year, creating a yearlong

collection of data and development. The tool assesses not one domain but many sections while

also going in depth in each one.

Some limitations of TS GOLD are how there are no specific interventions mentioned to

help when a child does fall behind in one category. If so, there should be some recommended

practices to help assist that area. Although there is a collective amount of data that helps to make

the assessment tool reliable, it does depend on the child individually, so more individual needs

should be met and adjusted for. Categories are good to classify and sperate skills but can also

place children in a specific section that they may never reach or need more time to improve. It

would be helpful to conduct a study that addresses interrater reliability,

In particular, the child that was assessed was only assessed in a few sections for TS

GOLD, but it supplied enough strengths and weaknesses to help the child’s development. The

child can be introduced to specific intervention programs to help strengthen their weaknesses.
 10
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
The developmental progressions within each scale work very well together to measure a single

underlying domain of development. This could be seen through the darker blocked off areas in

appendix B. The rating scale helps to effectively place children along a progression of

development and learning. The items in each domain are organized from easiest to most difficult

and that can clearly be seen with the sections the child was not doing well in. This is normal and

a great way to see how effective TS GOLD really is. The range of items indicates how teachers

can use each section to help them understand the developmental trajectory that most children will

follow, and in this child’s case where he/she would follow. Overall, teachers gain more

experience and training with the use of the assessment. Teachers are asked to implement many

assessments at once, but GOLD tries to make it easier for a teacher to quickly help a child who

needs it.

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)

General Description

DIBELS is a tool that consists of a “set of measures that assess the reading skills of

students in Grades K to 8” (University of Oregon, Center on Teaching and Learning, 2018, p. 2).

These measures include “Letter Naming Fluency (LNF), Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF),

Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), Word Reading Fluency (WRF), and Oral Reading Fluency

(ORF)” (University of Oregon, Center on Teaching and Learning, 2018, p. 2). DIBELS is a

collection of assessments that measure fluency and can be used for universal screening,

benchmark assessment, and progress monitoring in Kindergarten through 8th grade. The tests are

administered in many ways take up to a minute to quickly address subsets of reading skills that

children need in order to master their required skills for their grade level.
 11
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
Reliability & Validity

Reliability and validity are both concepts that are very much similar with some minor

differences. These two ideas are connected because “reliability is directly related to the

variability of your measure” (Trochim, 2020, p.1). Both are forming a “continuum,” where the

“concepts and methods of measurement are the same (reliability) and on the other is the situation

where concepts and methods of measurement are different (very discriminant validity)”

(Trochim, 2020, p.1). In particular, reliability focuses on testing and retesting in order to create a

sense of stability with the scores. When scores are stable, the correlation of data spreads out

more evenly. Having reliability checks are great ways to check and see if data is being taken

properly. Having a good level of reliability creates a “internal consistency,” that allows one to

measure concepts in the environment better (Clifford & Reszka, 2010, p. 8). Validity “is an

indicator of whether the instrument measures what it is intended to measure” (Clifford & Reszka,

2010, p. 9). In an instrument like these tools, validation can come from “gathering evidence that

support the inferences to be made based on the scores obtained from the assessment” (Clifford &

Reszka, 2010, p. 9). DIBELS is “reliable and valid indicators of children’s early literacy skills”

and “are effective tools for monitoring the individual progress of students” (Good, 2004, p. 2).

Students are “assessed monthly with all DIBELS measures throughout the study. Therefore,

multiple reliability and validity coefficients are reported” (Good, 2004, p. 2). For kindergarten

and first grade, “all DIBELS measures displayed adequate reliability” (Good, 2004, p. 2). The

median concurrent validity of DIBELS probes were “.36 for ISF, .56 for PSF, .51 for NWF, and .

75 for LNF” (Good, 2004, p. 2).

 12
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
Summary

The DIBELS instrument I gathered comes from a separate school from my placement

since my mentor teacher’s DIBELS is case sensitive and cannot be given out just to anybody.

Because of this issue, I was able to obtain DIBELS data for kindergarten from another school

and able to gauge the tool. In particular, the child shows improvement in phoneme segmentation

fluency as his progress has increased every month. The child did not fall back in progress and

continued to improve in phoneme segmentation fluency. The child is currently meeting the

benchmark goal at the moment and should stay consistent with that development in order to

maintain the good progress. The child did well at scoring at or above the aim line and is meeting

current expectations. In order to keep this consistent, the teacher can continue to monitor and

check the progress of the child using more probes. In Appendix C, there is a list of children who

are receiving varying levels of support and where they currently fall in the DIBELS

administration.

Reflection

DIBELS is a tool that consists of many benefits and limitations. This assessment tool can

be used to test many reading skills at once which allow it to have many positive effects on a

child’s development. In particular, DIBELS is very beneficial because it “can be a useful tool for

monitoring the acquisition of reading skills in elementary and secondary students” ((University

of Oregon, Center on Teaching and Learning, 2018, p. 2). DIBELS is packed with numerous

reading skill checks that help to test, monitor, and check the progress of a child’s development.

The assessment also provides as a dyslexia screener that helps to measure and validate

phonological awareness and the alphabetic principle that are typically used in dyslexia

identification. DIBELS is initially knocking two birds out with one stone by screening for
 13
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
important reading issues that a child might possibly have. Because the screening helps to find

these issues, a child can be caught early and helped sooner than later. DIBELS is also easily

graphable in order to track the progress of a child over the span of months and up to a year. The

assessment provides for a clear representation of progress being made or not made. DIBELS has

many facets and subsets which help to test many things at once while zoning in on important

skills needed to get to the next grade level. These tests are very helpful and beneficial because

they will show a teacher what areas their students have mastered in early literacy skills and what

areas teachers need to focus for instruction time. Another benefit is that the assessment is

inexpensive, and this cost is easy to pay for. DIBELS assessment tests areas separately so

teachers can quickly see if students are struggling in a certain area of reading more effectively.

Some limitations of DIBELS includes how the assessment is not tested in Pre-k. It is

harder to administer with children that are younger than 5 years old because of how long the

procedure can get with how many skills need to be tested. This can be taxing on very young

children. Some if not most of the tests for pre-k with DIBELS are too advanced and only sound

fluency can be tested appropriately. Unfortunately, DIBELS serves kindergarten and up but falls

short with creating reading skills that match any age lower than kindergarten. Another limitation

of DIBELS, includes how it does take less time to administer but teachers still may not want to

spend classroom time three different times throughout the year on the test, especially if they need

to give other assessments. Time needs to be allotted to give other assessments and DIBELS can

be time consuming. Some teachers do not like that DIBELS includes nonsense words as part of

the assessment and believe assessments should only include real words.

Overall, DIBELS is an assessment for reading that gives teachers access to a child’s

literacy skills. The tests help teachers measure phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, and
 14
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
fluency with connected text. The DIBELS test addresses the big ideas in beginning reading and

help to aid both child and teacher.

Summary

In summary, it is important to construct comprehensive systems of assessment. Both

screeners and tools of assessment are guides for a professional to gauge a child’s development

and skills. In order to assess young children’s strengths, progress, and needs; the use of

assessment methods that are developmentally appropriate, culturally and linguistically

responsive, tied to children’s daily activities, and supported by professional development are

needed in order to make appropriate recommendations. These assessments help to identify delays

in order to create interventions for individual children. Both ASQ TS GOLD, and DIBELS work

to present reliable and valid data that helps teachers make sound decisions about a child’s

learning and their teaching. Assessment instruments are used for their intended purposes and

both of these tools have their purposes. These assessments are appropriate for ages and other

characteristics of children being assessed. Above all, both instruments follow professional

criteria for quality and reflect children’s actual performance.

 15
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
References

Clifford, R. M., & Reszka, S. S. (2010). Reliability and Validity of the Early

Childhood Environment Rating Scale. Retrieved October 03, 2020, from

https://www.ersi.info/ecers_reliability.html

Good, R.H., Kaminski, R.A., Shinn, M., Bratten, J., Shinn, M., Laimon, D., Smith, S.,

& Flindt, N. (2004). Technical Adequacy of DIBELS: Results of the Early

Childhood Research Institute on measuring growth and development

(Technical Report, No. 7). Eugene, OR: University of Oregon.

Lambert, R. (2020). Technical manual for the Teaching Strategies GOLD® assessment (second

edition): Birth through third grade. Center for Educational Measurement and Evaluation,

University of North Carolina Charlotte.

Paul H. B. (2014) An Introduction to ASQ-3 [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from

https://agesandstages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Training-PPT-for-website-10-3-

14.pdf

Trochim, P. (2020, March 10). Reliability & Validity.

https://conjointly.com/kb/reliability-and-validity

University of Oregon, Center on Teaching and Learning (2018). Understanding the

research behind DIBELS® 8th Edition (Technical Report 1801). Eugene, OR: Author.

Wortham, S. C., & Sue, D. W. (2012). Assessment in early childhood education: Y Sue C.

Wortham (8th ed.). Ventura, CA: Cram101.

 16
CHILD ASSESSMENT – SCREENERS & INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS
Appendix

Appendix A (Ages and Stages Questionnaire)

- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OS5CuhR5XKXtyEd_alEo8hojmahvePwW/view?

usp=sharing

Appendix B (TS Gold)

- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QJ2b1Sc_QkXMDaOBKLPz-14vdlSKbeDq?

usp=sharing

Appendix C (DIBELS)

- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mtjW9ZfIfY6rEzK5zwchDGYrnBdlD2f7?

usp=sharing