This course provides students with a basic understanding of assessment of young children who have or are at risk for developmental delays or disabilities from birth through age five.

Students will become familiar with formal and informal methods and instruments for assessing young children’s social, emotional, cognitive, communication, and motor skills in a range of contexts including home, school, and community learning environments. Students will develop an understanding of the importance of family concerns, priorities, and resources in assessing young children. Students will identify methods for conducting formative and summative individual assessment as well as program evaluation.

Culturally responsive approaches to involving the family with the assessment process will be addressed.

This course will focus on typical and atypical communication and language development in children from birth through age five with or at risk for disabilities.

Topics will include early language development, origins and characteristics of atypical language development, and the relationship between communication/language delays and early learning and development across domains. Specific language disabilities and atypical language development related to disabilities such as autism and Down syndrome will also be discussed.

Students will explore methods of identifying and addressing communication and language delays through total communication including assistive technology and alternative communication systems.

The role of families and importance of family-professional partnerships in enhancing language development will be emphasized.

Prerequisite: 30 hours of hands-on, direct experiences with infants and toddlers or consent of co-director of Infant Specialist program.

This course takes a relationship-based developmental approach to observation, screening, and assessment of children from birth through age three.

Assessment is viewed as an integral part of the intervention process and as a collaboration between parents and providers. Students are trained to focus on underlying developmental processes as well as the appearance of individual milestones in cognitive, social/emotional, communication, and sensory and motor development. Students are guided in partnering with parents to assess the child’s strengths and challenges to development, and to identify the family’s priorities for services.

Selected screening tools, standardized tests, and criterion-referenced instruments are reviewed. Students receive introductory training in one screening and one assessment tool, including administration, interpretation, referral, and recommendations for developmental intervention. The rationale and practices for screening, referral, and assessment in various infant/toddler settings (e.g., child care, Early Head Start, early intervention) are examined.