Psychoeducational assessment has been used as a tool to sort children into academic tracks based on children's presumed capabilities. Historically, such tracking was based on measures that sought to legitimize racist assumptions about the capabilities of children of color. Despite legal mandates and changes to practice intended to correct these…

Number sense skills provide the foundation for the acquisition of higher order mathematical skills and concepts. However, there is disagreement over the definition of number sense, the specific skills that make up the construct, and the psychometric properties of measures used to assess these skills. In the current study, 10 brief tasks…

A "big idea" is a concept that gives meaning to discrete facts. In this article, the author proposes a small number of big ideas, as well as his own views on where he thinks the field needs to move to achieve its full promise in school-based behavioral and social-emotional assessment. The three big ideas he has selected include: (1) universal…

Implementation of effective interventions relies on the use of assessment data to adequately describe the learning problem and offer potential solutions. The use of curriculum-based assessment and measurement when combined with the learning hierarchy could offer a paradigm for decision making based on a skill-by-treatment interaction.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the technical (psychometric) adequacy of office discipline referrals (ODRs) as a behavioral assessment tool for individual student, data-based decision making within a problem-solving model. Participants were 990,908 students in 2,509 elementary schools. Students were grouped into ODR cut points of 0-1,…

Treatment integrity (also referred to as "treatment fidelity," "intervention integrity," and "procedural reliability") is an important methodological concerning both research and practice because treatment integrity data are essential to making valid conclusions regarding treatment outcomes. Despite its relationship to validity, treatment…

This special series focused on treatment integrity in the child mental health and education field is timely. The articles do a laudable job of reviewing (a) the current status of treatment integrity research and measurement, (b) existing conceptual models of treatment integrity, and (c) the limitations of prior research. Overall, this thoughtful…

The purpose of this paper is to present a model for systematic evaluation of school psychological reports that may prove useful in providing administrators, teachers, and psychologists with information on the efficacy of the reporting of student assessment methods used in the district. (BW)

Illustrates application of Gickling's model of curriculum-based assessment across four elementary-age students with reading problems. Notes that model involves carefully controlling amount of known material presented during instruction to ensure successful acquisition of mastery of new information. (Author/NB)

Presents conceptual framework for conducting curriculum-based assessment (CBA) which links together several models of CBA. Notes that integrated model begins with assessment of academic environment, assesses grade placement of child across curriculum materials, assesses child's instructional level within correctly placed grade-level material,…

Documenting treatment integrity is an important issue in research and practice in any discipline concerned with prevention and intervention. However, consensus concerning the dimensions of treatment integrity and how they should be measured has yet to emerge. Advances from three areas in which significant treatment integrity work has taken…

The concept of treatment integrity cuts across a diversity of fields involved with providing treatments or interventions to individuals. In medical treatments, the concept of "treatment compliance" or "treatment adherence" is an important and problematic issue. In the field of nutrition, the concept of "dietary adherence" is important for…

Research in assessment and intervention with developmentally disabled children has led to important advances in recent years. This article identifies conceptual and practical issues important to the process of behavioral assessment, and presents a framework for the behavioral assessment of the developmentally disabled, with special emphasis on…

This article explores concepts and strategies pertaining to systemic family assessment, enumerates the essential principles of systems theory, and discusses the purposes of family assessment in the context of children's school-related problems. An overview of assessment strategies is provided. (Author/LMO)

Three perspectives are developed in this reaction paper (see TM 506 171): (1) to make bold predictions of our future society and formulate needs that will be generated for school (2) to examine current assessment practices with specific focus on minority populations; and (3) an elaboration of the second perspective. (Author/GK)