There are SO many different kinds of educational, social skills, ADL, and psych evals on the market. If you're just starting out and your district doesn't provide you with any, it can be hard to sort through the different options and know if you're using something good. Before I share the 4 assessments that I use for all of my students, here are some criteria for what to look for when choosing assessments for your classroom:
1. Check who the assessment is normed against. When assessment developers make the test, they norm the questions against the answers from a sample of students in a certain age range with certain characteristics. This is a great place to start when looking at whether or not an assessment is right for you because if the assessment is normed against kids 18-96 months old, it isn't going to be appropriate to use this assessment in your middle school classroom!
2. Response requirement. Most assessments do not allow you to make accommodations for your student in order to satisfy the integrity of the assessment results. If you have a caseload of students who struggle with written expression and the assessment you're looking at does not allow for dictation as an accommodation, then this is not going to give you accurate results. Most assessments will allow you to access the user guide online or as a sample before you buy the assessment. You definitely want to read the directions to make sure your students are going to be able to access all parts of the test.
3. Does it align with the goals of the evaluation? If you are doing an initial evaluation to determine eligibility for special education students vs if you are conducting an evaluation to update the student's progress in a particular area, the kind of assessment you are going to use is different. In the first instance, it might make the most sense to use an evaluation normed to students with average academic performance in general education settings. In the later instance, you would want something really specific like a screener or rating scale. You might find an assessment that seems like it is the perfect fit for your caseload- but if it doesn't align with the goals of what you are looking for as a result of your assessment, it won't matter what a good fit it is!
Now that you know what to look for- here are some of my suggestions for assessments to use. I use these 4 assessments all year round in my K-4 accessible/special education classroom for all of my students. I don't use every assessment for every student- but these are pretty much the only assessments I will use all year.
Essential For Living
This is a great assessment for a child's school career. You can start administering this as early as kindergarten and use it all the way up through transition to adult services. According to their website, "The mission of Essential for Living [EFL] is to provide children and adults with moderate-to-severe disabilities, including but not limited to autism, a comprehensive curriculum referenced to ‘quality of life’, rather than typical development or academic standards, along with evidence-based teaching ‘and measurement‘ strategies and procedures, that result in the dignity and quality of life these children and adults deserve" (EFL P.A., 2023). Isn't that a great mission statement?
The EFL breaks down skills into different categories- must haves, should have, good to have, and nice to have skills. Those must-have skills are summarized in the Essential 8- which is a quick version of the assessment that can get your team started thinking about priorities for the student. The evaluation is designed to identify areas of skills that students need to develop to be more independent in adult settings, so these Essential 8 skills will be those skills that get basic wants and needs met and then the skills become increasingly more complex as you move on from there.
This is a criterion referenced assessment that includes direct test questions and observation questions. This assessment is best completed as a team. You are going to want input from families, OTs, PTs, SLPs, APE teachers, etc. When you purchase the assessment book you get one assessment book for each student, which I fill out every three years and reference as students master skills. Scoring skills on the EFL can be complex- you DEFINITELY want to be trained on this assessment before starting. If your district in unable to pay for training on the assessment, EFL has many helpful videos and presentations on their website to help you get started.
ABLLS-R
The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills -Revised (ABLLS-R) is a criterion referenced assessment and curriculum guide for students with autism and other developmental disabilities. The assessment includes skills across many different areas including academics, language, and social that most typically developing students develop by the time they enter Kindergarten. One of the great things about this assessment is the sheer range of skills it assesses- everything to motor skills to visual performance to toileting. If you are using this as an academic assessment, it won't be appropriate to use it past Kindergarten for this reason. However, if you are looking for an assessment that will help you track your student's progress towards the goals of this assessment.
This is also a criterion referenced assessment and like the EFL, it is really best used by teams to create a comprehensive picture of a student's achievement. You can use direct testing or information gathered through observations to complete. It is hefty, but it is very easy to administer and score unlike the EFL. Each test item gives you specific criteria for scoring as well as examples of responses. One of the other benefits of the ABLLS-R is how it visualizes progress easily. If you plan to use this assessment multiple times with the same student, you can download an excel version of the scoring sheet and fill in new scores each administration with a different color so you can visually track the student's progress.
The ABLLS-R comes with a task analysis of the test questions, but one of the benefits of this assessment is that it is so widely used that there are tons of resources available on TPT to help you administer the assessment. This wouldn't be an appropriate assessment for older students given that the skills are normed for Kindergarten skills. I use it for preschool students up through upper elementary, as the skills it measures as still age appropriate for my students.
VB-MAPP
The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program is another criterion referenced assessment that tracks skills for students who struggle with language. The VB-MAPP is based on the verbal behavior milestones as laid out by Dr. B.F. Skinner. Skinner theorized that all language can be broken down into different operants and that the development of all operants leads to mastery of language. For example, if you can ask for an apple by saying "apple", label a picture and an object as an apple, answer the question "what is a red fruit with a stem?", match different looking pictures of apples, and find a picture of an apple in a field of 8 other fruits, you have an understanding of the word apple. The VB-MAPP measures a student's progress across all the operants for language targets that 18-48 month old children typically develop in hopes of developing balanced language skills, not just teaching students rote responses.
The main drawback of this assessment is it measures skills for really young children. While developing balanced language is important for students of all ages, it is not appropriate to use an assessment like this on older children - it wasn't designed for it. I have most often seen this assessment used in early intervention and in preschool to determine eligibility for special education services and to build up weaknesses in students' language repertoires before entering kindergarten. I have seen many students successfully receive intervention based on the VB-MAPP in preschool who test out of special education services their first few years of elementary school. I have also seen educators use this assessment well into middle school, creating goals and objectives based on filling in skills following a developmental track. The problem with this misapplication of the assessment is that you can get stuck for years sometimes trying to fill in the gaps identified by the assessment, even if they aren't age appropriate or are contributing to the student's overall independence. A failure to move beyond these milestones sometimes prevents teachers from giving students access to literacy and math instruction, which is important at all ages regardless of their score on the VB-MAPP.
Given all of that, I use this sparingly and only with my youngest students. If you use this assessment for what is was designed for, it is a great tool to help you develop goals for students that create a balanced language approach. Don't be afraid to try it with your younger kiddos- it has really helped me think of all the different ways that language needs to be developed to create a strong repertoire for my students.
AFLS
The Assessment of Functional Living Skills is a newer assessment for me but it is quickly becoming one of my favorites to use in my accessible/special education classroom. This assessment tracks functional, adaptive, and self-help skills. What I particularly love about it is that it looks at the different environments a student is a part of and breaks down the important skills needed to be independent and successful in those domains. Like the other assessments I've mentioned, this is a criterion referenced assessment and is best administered as a team. The assessment I use the most is the School Skills Assessment, but it also includes a Basic Living Skills, Home Skills, Community Participation Skills, Vocational Skills, and Independent Skills assessments. Because of all these different sections, if you get the complete bundle you will have comprehensive assessments for all of your students in your district, no matter the age level.
The school skills assessment is unique in that it not only looks at the academic skills like math and reading, but also adaptive skills needed to be successful in all the different classroom environments. Because of this, I get a really clear picture of what accommodations and modifications I need to include in my students' IEPs. It looks at technology skills, skills for meal times, common knowledge, social skills, and routines and expectations in addition to the academic sections. Scoring looks very similar to the ABLLS in that you score an element on a scale of 0-2 or 0-4 and it gives you the specific criteria for each score.
If I had to pick one assessment to use in your accessible/special education classroom, it would be the AFLS. It can follow a student throughout their school career, it looks at really functional skills without neglecting the need to target academics, and it is comprehensive for all settings in a student's life. The only reason I would pick it over the EFL is because it is so much easier to administer!
Do you use any of these assessments in your accessible/special education classroom? If not and you want to give them a try, don't be afraid to look up Youtube videos of people administering it or ask your district to get you trained! Having someone walk you through the purpose of the assessment and how to score it step-by-step will make you more effective at administering it and give you a deeper understanding of how you can create goals and objectives from the assessment.
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