Part V of Tests

Developmental Play Assessment Instrument


The Developmental Play Assessment Instrument (Lifter, Sulzer-Azaroff, Ander- son, R Edwards-Cowdery, 1993) is an instrument used to assess the play develop- ment of children with disabilities relative to the play of nondisabled children. The developmental quality of toy play is evaluated according to the level of pretend play and the frequency and variety of play activities within the level identified.


Brigance Inventory of Early Development


The Brigance Inventory (Brigance, 1978) is criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced. While useful for assessment purposes, its value is in identifying instructional objectives, serving as a guide for measuring those objectives, and providing an ongoing tracking system. The Brigance Inventory is intended for informal assessment of several aspects of child development and is for children functioning at developmental levels from birth to seven years of age. Major areas assessed include general knowledge and comprehension, speech and language, preacademics, self-help, and psychomotor skills. Within these major areas, there are 98 subtests of sequenced developmental skills.


The Brigance Inventory permits different administrations to be used, such as observation, direct testing of the child, or reports from caretakers, child-care workers, or teachers. To elicit the child's maximum performance, clinicians are encouraged to allow children to respond in any possible fashion, such as pointing, eye localizations, or verbalizing. Clinicians are encouraged to adapt materials to best meet the needs of the child to get a response.


Reliability and validity measures of the Brigance Inventory are limited, as is true of most criterion-referenced instruments. There is no reported reliability or validity data in the manual.


The value of the Brigance Inventory lies in its ability to identify a child's pattern of strengths and weaknesses in several areas. The items are representative of a curriculum appropriate for an early childhood program and thus are easily linked to instructional planning and intervention (Bagnato, 1985). Another benefit of relating items to teaching and planning is that repeated assessments with the Brigance Inventory can pinpoint areas of gains and losses. The obvious caution here is to avoid teaching to the test since the items are so very specific. (See an article by Gory, 1985, for a review of the Brigance Inventory.)


Adaptive Assessment


Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales


The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS) (Sparrow, Balla, & Cicchetti, 1984) comes in three forms varying in degree of detail and proposed setting. There is the Survey Form, the Expanded Form, and the Classroom Edition. The VABS is administered by interviewing the child's parents, teachers, or care providers. The scales range in age from birth to nineteen years. Raw scores from communication, daily living skills, socialization, motor skills, and maladaptive behaviors are converted to standard scores with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The Adaptive Behavior composite score includes the domains noted above and reflects overall adaptive ability.


Questions have been raised about the scales' standardization and the accuracy of standard scores across the age range. One problem is lack of uniformity of scores across various ages. Depending upon the child's age, means and standard deviations differ. Thus, comparing the same child's performance on reassessment is compromised, as is the accuracy of any composite score. Differences among domain scores may be more apparent than real because of variable scores. There is considerable over- lap among the various domains with both communication and daily living domains containing questions about the child's language ability.