In a disability evaluation, we ask a child to point “to the triangle” or “to the author” as part of test developed to identify disorder. An evaluator who uses this kind of test to identify disability must assume that all children being evaluated have had similar exposure to “triangle” and “author” including similar family, cultural, and educational experiences. It follows then, that if a child cannot identify “triangle” or “author” it is because that child has some kind of learning problem. But what if a child does not have a disability but simply did not have the same exposure to “triangle” or books as the majority of children his age? Dynamic assessment offers evaluators an approach to see whether a child can acquire new linguistic information from the environment. Here are some clinicians examples of how to translate the dynamic assessment research into their own disability evaluations, including some “dynamic” approaches to increase the accuracy of our preschool disability evaluations.
Category: Fast Mapping
Fast mapping is a mental process that allows a child to acquire the meaning of a word after hearing the word applied to its referent during a small number of instances.
Relevant Research: Discriminating Disorder from Difference Using Dynamic Assessment with Bilingual Children
Downloadable PDF: Research Summary- Discriminating Disorder from Difference Using Dynamic Assessment in Bilingual Children.pdf
This study builds on recent evidence of the usefulness of dynamic assessment (DA) along with a mediated learning experience (MLE) and graduated prompting as a more appropriate method of determining the presence of language disorder (LD) in culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) children. Read More
Relevant Research: Factors That Influence Fast Mapping in Children Exposed to Spanish and English
The current study asked whether bilingual children would show less advantage in fast-mapping high-probability words as a result of interference from the second language (in this case Spanish) when compared to monolingual (English) children.
Quantification without Standardized Tests (Preschool Disability Evaluations: Module 37)
This modules explains how to provide quantification for a delay or disorder, if one exists, as it is required by the law. Read More
Clinical Judgment/Informed Clinical Opinion Part 1 (Preschool Disability Evaluations: Module 35)
This module begins to explain exactly what clinical judgment, or informed clinical opinion, is and how to use it during the evaluation process. Read More
Dynamic Assessment: Fast Mapping Introduction and Example 3 (Preschool Disability Evaluations: Module 33)
This module provides another example of dynamic assessment using fast-mapping with a child with a mild to moderate delay. Read More
Dynamic Assessment: Fast Mapping Introduction and Example 2 (Preschool Disability Evaluations: Module 32)
This module includes a different example of fast-mapping with a child with a mild delay. Read More
Dynamic Assessment: Fast Mapping Introduction and Example 1 (Preschool Disability Evaluations: Module 31)
This module introduces another form of dynamic assessment: fast mapping. Read More
