CSHA Magazine Sept. 1994, Page 18 & 19
 
By: Lynn Roberts, M.A.
Diagnostic Center - North, California Department of Education
jroberts@dcn.cde.ca.gov; Fax (510) 537-3321
 
Alternative assessment implies a difference from a standard.  For speech-language pathologists, this means the exploration of language and communication skills using other than standardized tests.  It is this creative and deep assessment that can lead to the most effective intervention.
 
The standard scores, age equivalencies and percentiles gained from standardized testing can be convenient and helpful information.  They can provide direction efficiently to the areas in which further investigation will be fruitful.  Over-use of these tools, however, can result in excessive focus on the person being tested as the locus of the communicative problem.
 
Speech-language pathologists have a responsibility for using alternative means of assessment for several reasons.  The American Speech-Language Hearing Association has established a standard which encourages the use of techniques other than standardized testing to assess communication and language skills.  Laws regulating the delivery of special education services require that more than one method of assessment must be used to qualify a student for services.  Children who have cultural backgrounds different from those in norming samples of standardized tests suffer from the comparisons necessitated by the use of these tests.  This is particularly true when assessing African American children.  Following the decision in the "Larry P" case, the use of many standardized tests with this population was not allowed in educational settings.  Finally, and most importantly, communication cannot be divided into parts.
 
Content, form and use are not communication.  Semantics, syntax and pragmatics are not communication.  Communication is a process and a product which goes on in the course of life.  People communicate in settings with other people.  Most communicating takes place without conscious regard to correct forms.  When people are experiencing difficulty in communication, every aspect of their lives is affected.  This is the communication difficulty speech-language pathologists must analyze and help ameliorate.
 
Alternative assessment includes observation and interaction which is client centered and at least somewhat client directed.  Tools which can be used include, but not limited to:

• checklists,
• videotaping,
• portfolios which include information that is compiled over time to allow assessors to deduce a learning curve,
• interviews with caregivers,
• search of developmental, medical and educational records,
• language sampling and analysis,
• interpretation of standardized test results in non-standardized ways,
• administration of test, or parts of tests in non-standardized ways.

Of course, any use of non-standardized methods must be clearly described and reported as such.

Just as a person's language does not exist apart from his/her environment, neither does it exist apart from his/her cognitive, behavioral, social or physical state.  Therefore, the interactions of the multidisciplinary assessment team using a combination of the above methods is the most thorough way to assess a person's communicative abilities in order to determine need for intervention.  In practice, the opportunity to participate in a multidisciplinary assessment may not exist.  When this is so, the speech-language pathologist must use other means such as review of records or consultation with other specialists to discover as much information as possible about her/his client.
 
If the alternative assessment is designed to address the following questions, intervention planning will be facilitated.

1. How much visual cuing is necessary to provide the person to act upon familiar or unfamiliar directions?
2. Is comprehension improved when information is given slowly and is short sentences?
3. Does the person create visual models for him/herself e.g. maps, notes, gestures?
4. Can the person give directions more easily than they are able to follow directions?
5. In group activities, does the person assume an active role, a passive role, an appropriate role for his capabilities, e.g. drawing rather than speaking, or record keeping rather than creating a narrative?
6. When the person creates narrative or gives directions does s/he provide details without appropriate syntactic connections, and/or create syntactically correct sentences which contain insufficient detail?  
7. How does the person utilize pragmatic skills?  Some of the following should be considered:
   • exhibits little or no sense of humor,
   • interrupts others to the point of annoyance,
   • does not take another's point of view - appears self-involved,
   • invades the personal space of others,
   • rarely interacts with others,
   • gets caught on the school grounds in trouble when others avoid it?
     

Do the answers to these questions verify the results of standardized tests?  Are there similarities in results which can give direction to intervention?  Are there differences which give direction to intervention?  In what ways can the results lead us to an understanding of how much change can be needed in the environment to empower and assist the person to his/her optimum level of communication?

The objective of assessment is to gain an understanding of the communicative abilities of clients and to devise ways to improve the quality of their lives by improving their communication skills.  Therefore, it is an advantage to the SLP and the clients to continually enlarge our repertoire of assessment skills.  Many standardized tests are revised regularly so that they reflect current understanding of statistics, culture and linguistics.  The SLP must keep abreast of this information.  The development of alternative assessment techniques is the responsibility of the speech-language pathologist.  The synthesis of information gained from broader assessment will provide the foundation for intervention that allows the practitioner to assist the client most effectively.