Screening for Children With Special Needs (1989)
Meeting Children's Needs
We know the importance of early childhood education, especially for children who are at risk for problems and perhaps failure in school. There is talk about expanding screening programs to identify children who need special services and help place them in appropriate programs. Before any decisions are made, it is important to be very clear about the values and the dangers of screening
The Purpose of Screening
Screening is a first step in identifying children who may be at risk of future difficulty in school (e.g., inability to meet academic expectations) and those who may have special needs in learning (e.g., extraordinary abilities and talents or handicapping conditions). In both cases, the identified children must be assessed more carefully to evaluate whether they do indeed require adaptations of the regular instructional program, or qualify for .specialized educational placement.
A Complete Assessment Should Include the Child's Environment, Too
Longitudinal studies in Minnesota and other states have produced dramatic evidence about the immense power of multiple, cumulative risk on intellectual development. They indicate clearly that such factors as maternal anxiety and mental health, mother-child interaction, family support, and stressful life events can play a major role in the child's development.
There is specific evidence that as the number of risk factors increases, intellectual performance decreases. Thus, when "at risk" children are faced with more risks in each year of their lives, their performance can drop steadily, widening the intellectual gap between them and their peers in the public school system.
Therefore, it becomes clear that in screening and assessing children, information about the child's world (family and environment) is as important as scores from the testing of the child's performance at a particular time and place.
Is Screening the Answer?
The terms "screening" and "assessment" are not interchangeable.
Because screening is intended as a first step in determining needs of children, the measures are usually inexpensive, brief, and simple to administer. It is not surprising therefore that screening tools have very low predictive power. They only provide information about which children need further assessment with diagnostic measures. Screening alone is not sufficient for decisions about a child's placement or kind of instruction. Further assessment is necessary.
Issues in Screening
Researchers, educators and psychologists differ in their opinions about whether screening is valid and/or whether it may be harmful. Many are concerned about the quality of the screening programs and the tools that are used. Most are worried that some children will be labeled falsely and that some who need special services will go unattended. All would agree that the issues boil down to the questions why, when, and how.
WHY? It is a first step in identifying children who may have special needs. It can not only determine which children need assessment, but insure that children who need service are not overlooked.
WHEN? Young children change rapidly, especially in social-emotional development. Individual growth factors may cause problems to appear later or early problems may be overcome with further development and learning. Therefore, it is essential that screening be done periodically.
HOW should screening information be used? When screening indicates the possibility of a problem, the child should be carefully assessed before a diagnosis is made. Only the results of assessment should be used to guide decisions about a child. Otherwise, children may be:
unfairly excluded from needed services or placed inappropriately,
kept in a program that no longer meets their needs, or
subjected to lowered teacher expectations, diluted curriculum or narrow homogeneous groupings, constricting their opportunities to learn.
Problems in Screening
There is concern because results from existing screening tools are plagued with errors. Because the measures may be inaccurate, they can result in denying services to needy children or expending scarce resources on children who, in fact, do not require intervention.
The tests produce errors for a simple reason. Young children's behavior is affected by unfamiliar situations. They may have difficulty responding to a strange person in a new place or they may not know how to use a pencil to write or mark on the forms. As a result, children may not be able to demonstrate their actual abilities. Information from multiple sources, parents, teachers, and others, using informal tools to supplement any tests and checklists--will present a more adequate picture of a child's current functioning.
FACT FIND Suggests:
As our state considers a model for a program designed to identify high risk children and families, the following factors should be considered:
Selecting children to be placed in specifi