Why Do We Assess Young Children?

“The overarching purpose of assessment for early intervention is the design of individual plans for instruction and therapy” (Sandall et al., 2000; Bagnato, Neisworth, & Munson, 1997).

While “early intervention” is the term used to describe services provided to children identified as having educationally handicapping conditions, “early intervening” is the term used in the Recognition and Response system to describe the types of supports that are recommended for children with learning difficulties who may be at risk for learning disabilities.

Gathering information in an organized and systematic manner (assessment) about young children serves several purposes:

• To identify appropriate early intervening supports (and perhaps, to determine eligibility for early intervention services)
• Screening for instructional needs
• Individual curriculum goal-planning
• Monitoring curricular progress toward early learning standards
• Tracking individual and group progress
• Documenting response to instruction (and for some children, tutoring, therapy and intervention)
• Evaluating program impact and outcomes

“The best predictor of future behavior is a past behavior history; but small increments of progress during early intervention begin to create a new history which predicts a new future” (Bagnato & Neisworth, in press).

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