The only book with professional ratings and reviews of 80 widely used assessment measures for children birth-8, the new edition of this popular reference helps you select high-quality assessment materials for your early childhood program.

An Activity-Based Approach to Early Intervention, Second Edition, is an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate students of early intervention, special education, and child development, and it serves as a practical in-service resource for program administrators, therapists, interventionists, and other members of transdisciplinary teams.

The assessment of young children's development and learning has recently taken on new importance. Private and government organizations are developing programs to enhance the school readiness of all young children, especially children from economically disadvantaged homes and communities and children with special needs. Well-planned and effective assessment can inform teaching and program improvement, and contribute to better outcomes for children. This book affirms that assessments can make crucial contributions to the improvement of children's well-being, but only if they are well designed, implemented effectively, developed in the context of systematic planning, and are interpreted and used appropriately. Otherwise, assessment of children and programs can have negative consequences for both. The value of assessments therefore requires fundamental attention to their purpose and the design of the larger systems in which they are used. Early Childhood Assessment addresses these issues by identifying the important outcomes for children from birth to age 5 and the quality and purposes of different techniques and instruments for developmental assessments.

This book presents an integrated and coordinated framework for assessing developmental, psychological, and behavioral disorders in early childhood. Expert contributors advocate for natural-environment methods in addition to standardized measures in assessing academic and social skills as well as age-specific behavior problems in young children. Chapters model collaborations between clinicians, family, and daycare and school personnel, address diagnostic and classification issues, and conceptualize assessment as flexible, ongoing, and, as necessary, leading to coordinated services. The book gives practitioners and researchers critical tools toward establishing best practices in an increasingly complex and important area, leading to better prevention and intervention outcomes. Included in the coverage: Standardized assessment of cognitive development. Authentic and performance-based assessment. The use of Response to Interve ntion (RTI) in early childhood. Collaboration in school and child care settings. Anxiety disorders, PTSD, OCD, and depression in young children. Sleeping, feeding/eating, and attachment problems in early childhood. Early Childhood Assessment in School and Clinical Child Psychology is an essential resource for clinicians and related professionals, researchers, and graduate students in child and school psychology; assessment, testing, and evaluation; occupational therapy; family studies, educational psychology; and speech pathology.

Meeting a crucial need, this book provides clear recommendations for authentic developmental assessment of children from infancy to age 6, including those with developmental delays and disabilities. It describes principles and strategies for collecting information about children's everyday activities in the home, preschool, and community that serves as a valid basis for intervention planning and progress monitoring. Throughout, the book emphasizes the importance of enlisting parents as partners with practitioners and teachers in observation and team-based decision making. Special features of this well-organized, accessible volume include recommendations for developmentally appropriate assessment tools and "Best-Practice Guidepoints" in each chapter that distill key professional standards and practices.

Curriculum-based assessment that professionals can use in their center or home to assess children birth-six through observation of their play complete with tables that compare their children to typically developing children.

A natural progression from the authors' widely known work on assessment and programming in early intervention, LINK is a revolutionary process that hurdles traditional obstacles to selecting and using authentic assessment-intervention-evaluation procedures for young children. Pulling the best properties from well-known assessment and curriculum models, LINK identifies critical markers for judging quality and effectiveness: authenticity, collaboration, convergence, equity, sensitivity, and congruence. The authors apply this unique six-standard index to more than 50 different curriculum-embedded and curriculum-compatible assessment and intervention systems, rating and analyzing each. In addition, they explain how early childhood professionals can perform their own quality reviews and then customize the system(s) of their choice to specific populations or programs. With this essential resource in hand, early intervention team members and administrators can ensure the individualized support opportunities every child needs for healthy deyelopment.