Severson, Walker, Hope-Doolittle, Kratochwill, & Gresham

2007

This article provides a review of current practices and tools used in the proactive screening of

behaviorally at-risk students within the context of schooling. While there are many obstacles to the

early detection of vulnerable students, some recent developments have helped make educators more

receptive to early identification and prevention approaches. In addition to describing current best

practices, this article reviews promising innovations in screening and early identification that the

authors believe are worth considering and whose structural characteristics, required accommodations, and critical features may make them more acceptable to educational users. Implications for the

training of school psychologists in the screening and early identification of high-risk students are

reviewed and recommendations offered for future research.

Bracken, 1988

Ten Psychometric Reasons why similar tests produce different results

1. floor effects
2. ceiling effects
3. item gradients
4. differences in norms table layouts
5. use of grade or age equivalents for comparisions
6. reliability differences 
7. skill differences assessed across tests
8. content differences assessed across tests
9. differences in publication dates
10. representativeness of norm samples

Fuchs and Fuchs 

1998

Summarizes a substantial portion of the research base on the technical features and instructional utility of CBM; provides a framework for using CBM within a treatment validity approach to LD identification, within which students are identified for special education when their level of achievement and rate of improvement is substantially below that of classroom peers and when, despite intervention efforts, they remain resistant to treatment.

Sugai and Horner,

2006

SPR

In this article, a behaviorally based,

comprehensive systems approach is suggested

as a means of establishing effective and durable implementation of SWPBS. This approach

is based on a team that leads a comprehensive

action plan and has activities related to achieving organizational capacity for political support, funding, visibility, training, coaching,

evaluation, and exemplar demonstrations. Attention to organizational supports may be the

most important consideration for successful

student outcomes in the SWPBS approach.

However, to advance what we know and can

say about SWPBS, it is important to consider

issues related to future research, research to

practice, and professional development.

non-discriminatory assessment

1. assess for the purpose of the intervention
2. assess initially with authentic and alternative procedures
3. assess and evaluate the learning ecology
4. assess and evaluate language development and proficiency
5. assess and evaluate opporutnity for learning
6. assess and evaluate relevant cultural and linguistic factors
7. evaluate, revise, and re-test hypotheses
8. determine need for and language of assessment
9. reduce bias in traditional testing practices

• use of cultural matrix--includes each subtests degree of linguistic demand and each subtests degree of cultural loading
• 10. support conclusion via data convergence and multiple indicators

• response to intervention must be combined with comprehensive cognitive assessment to identify children with learning disabilities
• CHT--cognitive hypothesis testing model--utilizes a scientific method approach for interpreting cognitive and neuropsychological processes together with evaluation of ecological and treatment validity data to develop targeted interventions for students who do not response to standard academic achievement
• RTI model that does not embrace comprehensive cog. assessment of individual differences overlooks the vast literature in cognition, cognitive assessment, neuropsychology and learning disabilities that links cognitive processing with acheivement and LD
• CHT--model of ID of LD. based on four premises

1. a number of complex cognitive and neuropsychological processes have been empirically linked to academic achievement
2. children often have unique learning profiles of cognitive strenghts and weakness
3. the learning profiles must be evaluated both through direct assessment of cognitive processes and examinatino of ecological and treatment validity
4. the children's academic deficits must be remediated and/or compensated for based on underlying cognitive strenghts and weaknesses.

Responsiveness to intervention: definitions, evidence, and implications for the learning disabilities construct

• describes disadvantages of the discrepancy model
• description of RTI as an alternative to the discrepancy model--RTI is described as providing help more quickly to a greater number of struggling students.  Related to this is the idea that providing individualized and intensive insturction to these students.  Distinction between truely disabled chidlren and false positives (children who appear to be disabled but are not)
• at present, two identifiable groups have promoted RTI
• an early intervention/previous group--consists of reading researchers
• behaviorally-oriented school psychologists who have lobbied for years to change the psychometrically drive ID process 
• This article also discusses RTI within a problem solving model--using consultation and problem solving within an RTI model

• neither RTI nor ability-discrepancy address the defintition of SLD and both ignore the relevance of psychological processes in identifying SLD

CHC theory--one single test is not able to assess all areas of intelligence--led to the development of cross-battery assessment

• XBA--developed to spell out to practitioners how to conduct assessments that approximate the total range of broad and narrow abilities available
• guides practitioners in the selection of tests (core and supplemental) that provide a comprehensive measurement of abilities

first published record of the linking of Gc-Gf and Carrol's three stratum theory of intelligence

• CHC--"a first effort to create a single Gf-Gc taxonomy for use in the evaluation interpretation of intelligence batteries was the integrated CHC model
• psychometric--empirically derived theory of intelligence

Fluid Reasoning (Gf) and Short Term Memory (Gsm), specifically working memory--now are better represented by cognitive assessments.

• may be because of accumulating research evidence regarding their importance to overall academic success

Three Pillars of XBA

Flanagan and colleagues, 2000

Flanagan, Ortiz and Alfonzo, 2007

1. CHC Theory
2. CHC Broadh Stratum
3. CHC Narrow Abilities

suggested that it might be necessary to "cross" batteries to measure a broader range of cognitive abilities

led to cross battery approach

CIA book Chapter 8

• description of the history behind CHC theory and the linking of Gc-Gf theory and Carrolls theory to make CHC
• description of CHC and the three stratums

CIA Chapter 9

describes the impact of CHC theory on test development and interpretation of cognitive abilities

• utiliity of the theory is in clarifiying individual cognitive and academic strengths and weaknesses--understood best thru the operalization of broad and narrow (stratum I) abilities
• in the middle of the 1980s--after several decads of revisions and mounting validity evidence CHC theory began to influence test development
• today--nearly every intelligence test developer acknowledge the importance of CHC theory in defining and interpreting cognitive ability constructs--most have used this theory to guide directly the development of their intelligence tests
• Prior to 1980 theory seldom played a role in intelligence test development 
• Prior to 1998--majority of the published tests only measured 2-3 broad abilities (included 2 plus measures of the broad ability_
• WJ-R measured all of the broad abilities, but most were not measured well
• a substantial theory to practice gap existed
• Cross battery assessment helped to close this gap
• majority of tests published after 1998 now measure 4-5 broad abiliteis adequately as opposed to 2-3
• WJ-III continues to measure all of the major broad cognitive abilities and now measures these abilities well

The Achievement Test Desk Reference: Comprehensive Assessment and Learning Disabilities

describes the cognitive processing model for identifcation of SLD

• stage 1= administer an achievement test; examine external variables
• stage 2 = administer a cognitive assessment; examine the strengths and weaknesses and whether they match up to achievement test strengths and weaknesses
• stage 3 = examinatino of pattern of academic weaknesses and cognitive deficits to determine the relations between the cognitive and academic deficits

Flanagan & McGrew, 1997

Flanagan, McGrew and Ortiz, 2000

Beyone the Academic rhetoric of "g"--intelligence testing guidelines for practitioners

• we need to examine the input, processing and output demands of our measures--a process we call Demands Analysis
• Demands analysis allows a practitioner to determine hos one intelligence construct is related to another to gain a more holistic understanding of the child, and how the purported constructs affect her daily life, there by ensuring ecological validity
• While some chlidren will benefit from a purely behavioral and CBM intervention approahc--others will not.  some children require a thorough psychological evaluation using standized measures and other data sources, preferably using the demands analysis
• combined with a thorough understanding of learning disorder subtype and psychopathology, and a complete evaluatino of the ecological determinants of a child's behavior, a psychologist can provide team members with an accurate understanding of the child's strenghts and needs--this is the beginning of a truely individualized education