CHILD DEVELOPMENT - INGRID SCHOON (CITY)

Early Childhood Development: Importance of Preschool Assessment By three years of life, children:   have developed a foundation of personality and sense of world  are well versed in daily routines  have developed basic, functional language and grammar rules  By four years of age they have developed 50% of their adult intelligence

Cognitive Assessment of Preschool Children Standardised Test Instruments Direct assessment of the child  Cover both verbal and non-verbal performance skills  Use of standardised test materials (test kit)  Should only be administered by qualified test administrators  Full test takes about 1 hour to complete

Cognitive Assessment of Preschool Children Direct Assessment Selection of Subscales of Standardised Test Instruments  Should include both verbal and non-verbal subscales  Acceptable levels of reliability and validity are maintained  Less costly than acquiring full test kit  Takes less time than full assessment to administer  Training is still required

Cognitive Assessment of Preschool Children Parent-based Assessment PARCA3 has been developed for the assessment of cognitive abilities of 3-year olds. Aims to separate non- verbal ability from verbal skills. Inventory consists of:  parent-report component (measuring spatial ability, planning, reasoning, memory, quantitative skills, pretend play and number) and  parent-administered component (find the pair, drawing, and matching – measuring number, size, shape, conceptual grouping, and orientation)  parent report of vocabulary (100-item vocabulary checklist of varying difficulty-level)

Cognitive Assessment of Preschool Children Parent-based assessment of cognitive abilities Advantages compared to traditional standardised tests:  Children do not have to perform for a stranger  Parental assessments can be administered via the post, and are thus particularly useful for research requiring large samples  Is more economical than in-person assessment  Is based on more extensive behavioural sampling  Does not require special training of interviewers  Cognitive abilities of young children can validly be measured via parent-based assessment

Cognitive Assessment of Preschool Children Parent-based assessment of cognitive abilities Disadvantages in comparison to tester based assessment:  Parent reports are prone to bias, forgetting and misinterpretation  Parental estimates do tend to yield higher means than scores based on standardised testing  Parents reports are valid over a wide, but not universal, range of education levels  Accuracy of parental reports might be distorted in certain clinical contexts  Lack of information regarding the role of potential cultural differences in affecting parent report

Options for Cognitive Assessment: 1) Direct Assessment using full standardised test 2) Direct assessment using selected subscales 3) Parent-based assessment of cognitive abilities 4) Interviewer-based assessment using parent- based assessment instrument