It Takes a Village

As teachers, it is our responsibility to involve all parents in the education of our students. We normally do this pretty well. However, it has come to my attention that many of the parents of our Spanish-speaking students are less involved in the education of their children than the other populations of students. I will discuss with you the importance of involving all parents, the difficulties you may face when trying to encourage your parents to become more involved, and some ideas known to work when getting parents involved in the education of their children.

Research has shown that parental involvement in education affects the outcome of their children’s academic achievement. Many parents who are less involved in the education of their children are parents of children who achieve at lower academic levels than students whose parents are involved. Therefore, having family members, as well as other members of the community, of the Spanish-speaking students involved can give the student a validation of their own culture and help them understand the importance of their education. Parent involvement further ensures there is an open line of communication between the teacher and the family, which is often key in addressing any difficulty the student may be having as the problem arises. Furthermore, it helps the parent to understand what their children are speaking of when they return to their home. Parental involvement can also be beneficial to you, as the teacher. You can learn from the parent the differences in the Spanish-speaking culture and our own. You can also teach the parents how our culture works and what is expected of their child as a student.

Differences in cultures will be the number one difficulty that a teacher of a Spanish-speaking student will face. You may think that the student’s parents are not interested in their education, which is usually not the case. In some cultures, the parents are not involved in their children’s educations and may expect our education system is the same. Also, there may be a greater value on education for your male English Language Learners (ELL) than your female. Many parents of Spanish-speaking students do not feel as if they belong at the school. They may feel uncomfortable for various reasons. One main reason could be his or her own experience with school. If you have a parent who had negative experiences in school, they will be less involved in their child’s education. Another reason that a parent may not seem involved is because their work schedule does not give them time to come into the school. The parent may work while their student is in school and cannot meet during school hours, or the parent may work more than one job and not be able to meet on your schedule. The parents and families of the students may also view an education as less important than religious activities and other activities such as family businesses, in which your student may work. There may also be language barriers that hinder your ability to communicate with the parents. Remember that even people who seem to speak English well may not be able to understand what you are talking about when speaking to them. A lot of meaning can and usually is lost in translation. Some of the community leaders may be resistant to coming in for many of the before mentioned reasons. Also, they may see education as solely your responsibility in which they should not be involved. These are just a few of the difficulties you may face as a teacher of a Spanish-speaking ELL.

Although it seems there are a lot of difficulties in reaching parents and community leaders in the Spanish-speaking community, there are a lot of ways you can help bring them into the education system so that Spanish-speaking ELLs will benefit. You can validate the student’s culture by inviting their parents and community leaders to come into the classroom. At this time, you can have them tell the class about their culture and share their customs and beliefs with the class. This will also be beneficial to the mainstream students in your classroom by providing a culturally enriched environment for learning. You can ask the parents to cook some of their native foods to share with the class and explain why the food is important to the culture. Other suggestions would be to have any parent/teacher correspondence translated into Spanish by a native Spanish-speaking colleague. This can help the parents understand that you value their language and culture. You can notify the parents of their rights and responsibilities, and let them know about the rules and procedures for your school and classroom. Be upfront with the parents and let them know what is expected of their students. For parents that do not speak any English, make sure you have an interpreter available (not the student) to help you communicate with the parents and use non-verbal messages and cues, such as meeting them at the door and walking them to the door. You can also invite the parents to take a tour of the school, and show them your classroom as well as inviting them to observe your classroom. Another tip is to be available and keep all lines of communication open to the parent. You should meet on the parent’s schedule, not yours. So, you may have to take time out to do home visits. This can give you more insight into the cultural differences between the Spanish-speaking community and your own. It will also give you an opportunity to learn the student’s talents and interests as well as their culture. Encourage the parents or other family members to read to their student, and if they cannot read, have their student read to them. There are many, many more ideas for getting Spanish-speaking family members involved.

Overall, the most important factor is the education of the student. With the  student’s parents and the community’s involvement, the student will be more apt to care about his or her own education; and as a team, you and the student’s parent will be able to provide the student with an environment in which he or her can grow and learn, which will better prepare the student for his or her future.

Emotionally Disturbed

Brenner, Gregory J., Nelson, J. Ron, Neill, Stern and Stage, Scott A., (2006). Interrelationships Among Language Skills, Externalizing Behavior, and Academic Fluency and their Impact on the Academic Skills of Students with ED. Journal of Emotional and Behavior Disorders, 14, (4), 209-214.

The researchers claim students with emotional disturbance are more likely to have deficits at the academic level than their peers. According to their work, the researchers show a link between children with emotional disturbance and language problems. Furthermore, the researchers have shown that externalized behaviors are directly related to academic achievement, but internalized behaviors are not. The researchers admit the study under represents the minority classes, and the sample of students assessed was relatively small. From their studies the researchers suggest that intervention strategies that focus on developing language for students with emotional disturbance. However, it should be noted that the above-mentioned intervention only addresses the students’ language difficulties, and does not suggest an intervention strategy to address the students’ externalized behavior.

Gresham, Frank M., (2005). Response to Intervention: An Alternative Means of Identifying Students as Emotionally Disturbed Education and Treatment of Children, 28, (4), 328-344.

Gresham states that children with emotional disturbance can be disruptive in the classroom. Unfortunately these students are often underserved in the school setting, which is often the result of the inability to properly identify students with emotional disturbance. Once emotional disturbance is suspected, issues often can be addressed during the response to intervention process. During RTI the following factors must be taking in consideration: severity of behavior, chronicity of behavior, generalizability of behavior change, treatment strength, treatment integrity, and treatment effectiveness. The RTI model requires that the changes in behavior must be reliable changes, which are to be measured by the absolute change index, reliable change index, percent nonoverlapping data points, percent change from baseline, and effect size estimates. These changes should address the social impact the behavior has on everyday life of the student. The researcher concludes if the behaviors do not adequately change, the student should be considered for special education services.

Levinson, Edward M., and Rudy, Heide L.. (2008). Best Practices in the Multidisciplinary Assessment of Emotional Disturbances: A Primer for Counselors. Journal of Counseling and Development, 86, (4) 494-504.

The researchers suggest the rules and regulations set up by the American School Counselor Association and No Child Left Behind has changed the role of school counselors without providing them with proper standards, guidelines, and training to work with children with emotional disturbances. The researchers suggest because the school-based counselors are only part of a multidisciplinary team needed to meet the mental health needs of students with emotional disturbance, the school-based counselors should work closely with the parents and community-based counselors. This is important because of the academic impact of emotional disturbance on students. Because of the lack of standards for identifying students with emotional disturbance, the researchers suggest a variety of assessments to be implemented by the counselor, such as empirically based assessments, standardized rating scales, interviews, direct observations, and functional behavior analysis. With the aid of the other members in the multidisciplinary team and the assessments, counselors will be more apt to provide appropriate services for the student with emotional disturbance.

Page, Patricia and Regan, Kelley (2008). “Character” Building: Using Literature to Connect with Youth. Reclaiming Children and Youth: The Journal of Strength-based Interventions, 16, (4), 37-43.

The researchers suggest literature can be used to help with the emotional, academic, and social skill development of students with emotional disturbance. The use of literature to help students obtain the coping skills needed when dealing difficult emotions can be an effective intervention strategy. The researchers suggest bibliotherapy should be used in conjunction with other positive behavioral programs. The Circle of Courage Model is suggested to be beneficial in the development of children with emotional difficulties. This model gives the students a sense of belonging, independence, generosity, and mastery. The researchers conclude the use of literature in this model allows students to align their own experiences with other human experiences. In this manner, the literature can be used as a powerful tool to help heal students with emotional problems and can provide positive experiences to the students’ lives.

Silver, Rawley, (2008). Identifying Children and Adolescents at Risk for Depression and/or Aggression. Online Submission.

The aggressive behavior of children with major depression plagues many schools throughout the United States. The researcher has proposed from six research studies that a stimulus-drawing assessment can help identify at risk students. In the first study there was a correlation between depression and negative responses on the Draw a Story task. The second study, which focused on incarcerated adolescents, showed that the respondents’ reactions to the drawings might not agree with the therapists’ findings. The third study found that both males and females responded similarly in their drawings. The fourth study showed that students who scored one point in Self Image and Emotional content were depressed. The fifth study showed little cultural differences between delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents. The final study showed that art therapy does help with the emotional behavior of children with emotional problems. All six studies seem to show that stimulus drawing assessments can be used to determine students who are at risk for emotional disturbance.

Speech Language Impairment

Bishop, D. V. M., Chipchase, Barry, Kaplan, Carole, Snowling, Margaret J., and Stothard, Susan E. (2006). Psychosocial Outcomes At 15 Years of Children With A Preeschool History of Speech-language Impairment. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 47, (8), 759-765.

The researchers claim that from various studies done on children with speech language impairments, there is an increased risk of psychological disorders. This study was designed to determine the affects of early intervention on the psychological development of adolescents with speech language impairments. The sample pulled seventy-one of eighty-seven students with speech language impairments from a previous study done at the pre-school level. These adolescents were put through psychiatric and cognitive evaluations. The overall prognoses is that children with speech language impairments in the pre-school years do not necessarily show a significant difference in psychological development. However, the study does show that the children that continue to have difficulty with speech and language throughout the elementary and middle school levels do show an increase in psychosocial disorders.

Brown, Barbara., Camarata, Mary N., Camarata, Stephen M., Leonard, Laurence B., and Pawlowska, Monica. (2008). The Acquisition of Tense and Agreement Morphemes by Children With Specific Language Impairment During Intervention: Phase 3. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51, (1) 120-125.

The researchers’ investigation proved that children with speech language impairments showed improvements on target morphemes that mark tense and agreement after a one-month period. Although they did show gains, many of the subjects did not reach mastery levels during the study. The suggestions for the failure to reach mastery levels are that the intervention strategy was not designed well or the subjects in the study were too young. One month after the study was over, the improvements were maintained. The sample of children used in the study was small, thirty-three, and the ages were from three years to four years eight months. The treatment conditions stressed third person singular, auxiliaries, and general language stimulation. The children in the general language stimulation group did not show remarkable improvement, though they, too, showed gradual improvement.

Gillam, Ronald B., & Gillam, Sandra L. (2006). Making Evidence-Based Decisions About Child Language Intervention In Schools. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services In Schools, 37, (4), 304-315.

The researchers suggest speech language pathologist should move from basing their clinical decisions on child language interventions in schools on the information they were give in their graduate programs to basing the decisions on evidence-based practices. In order to make decisions, the speech language pathologist needs to stay informed on research discoveries. The researchers suggest a seven-step process: one – create a general or specific clinical question to ensure relevant evidence is collected, two – find external evidence that pertains to the question to find studies that answer the question, three – determine the level of evidence and critically evaluate the study to ensure their decision is based on the best evidence available, four – evaluate the internal evidence related to the student-parent factors for a weighing system that best fits the student, five – evaluate the internal evidence related to clinician-agency factors for a system that best fits the setting they work in, six – make a decision by integrating the evidence to avoid conflict between the interested parties, and seven – evaluate the outcomes of their decision to ensure the implemented program is effective. The researchers provide an example of these seven steps and feel SLPs who use recent research will be the best equipped to help their students.

Gillon, Gail T. (2005). Phonological Awareness: Evidence To Influence Assessment and Intervention Practices. Language, Speech, & Hearing Services In Schools, 36, (4), 281-284.

According to Gillon’s research, improvement in spoken language only in children with speech language impairments does not prove success in treatment of the children. To be successful, children with speech language impairments must also show improvement in written language. Gillon suggests the use of phonological awareness based programs to increase overall improvement with children with speech language impairments as assessment and intervention practices. These practices will address reading and spelling difficulties, which have been linked to poor phonological representations of words. Gillon’s claim is based on scientific research presented in a forum involving New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

McCabe, Paul C., Meller, Paul J. (2004). The Relationship Between Language and Social Competence: How Language Impairment Affects Social Growth. Psychology In The Schools, 41, (3), 313-321.

Because social success depends greatly on language, the researchers of this study suggest children with speech language impairments often seem socially incompetent. Because language development is often an interaction between peers, children with speech language impairments often do not receive the feedback needed for language development. This leads to the child’s difficulty in forming peer bonds. In turn, the inability of these children to interact properly on an emotional level may lead to the lack of emotional knowledge, or gauging the emotions of others, which may cause a lack of acceptance from their peers. The researchers sampled thirty-five children from three years ten months to five years seven months in age to prove how socially competent the children with speech language impairments. Through various testing methods the researchers gained an understanding that children with speech language impairments may have difficulty developing socially competent behaviors.

How to Read Websites Regarding Disability Categories (Examples)

Emotional Disturbance

http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/4d1fa.htm

How do the authors of the website create a sense of authority within the website?

The name of the website, the Doctor’s Guide to Medical and Other News, gives it a sense of authority as well as the use of credible sources.

Four points described that I was drawn to:

1. I was drawn to the title of the article.
2. I was also drawn to the fact that the report was done by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
3. I was drawn to the fact they used quotes from the CEO of the National Mental Health Association, Michael Faenza.
4. I was also drawn to the fact the article made bold claims, which were backed up by statistics from the study.

Four points described that indicate I should be cautious about:

1. One of the things that made me a bit cautious was that all dot com websites are suspect because they are commercial sites.
2. Another issue that was suspect was that the study only included 8 community-based studies, but the size of and type of community is not disclosed in the article.
3. I was also suspicious about the fact that the sample size was not given; therefore, the results may be skewed.
4. Another issue that was suspect to me was that there is a solution to the problem given, but the problem is not thoroughly discussed.

Speech Impairment

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-11/2008-11-06-voa47.cfm?CFID=77452741&CFTOKEN=28545778

How do the authors of the website create a sense of authority within the website?

The authors of the website are employs of the Voice of America news group. The authors of the article use trigger words to gain a sense of authority. They do not successfully support their claim because the information included in the article contradicts itself.

Four points described that I was drawn to:

1. The first statement in the article grabbed my attention because the authors started the article with “Researchers have identified.”
2. Later, they keep my attention by restating the claim as “Scientists have identified.”
3. The study identified in the article came from the Wellcome Trust Center for Human Genetics at Oxford University.
4. The findings of the study were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Four points described that indicate I should be cautious about:

1. The study was only done on 184 families; therefore, the sample size was relatively small.
2. A researcher at Rutgers University in New Jersey is concerned about the findings of the study.
3. The same researcher believes that more research is needed.
4. The study was not initially done to specifically prove that CNTNAP2 is linked to speech impairments.

Mild Mental Retardation

http://www.faqs.org/health/Sick-V3/Mental-Retardation.html

How do the authors of the website create a sense of authority within the website?

From the URL given, the website gives a sense of authority. The authors also lay the site out to where it looks like a professional website.

Four points described that I was drawn to:

1. The top of the page grabbed my attention because it says the site is a Free Health Encyclopedia.
2. The site mentions the rating scales often used to determine intellectual disabilities.
3. The site uses a picture of and description of brothers that have mental retardation.
4. The site has links to the American Association on Mental Retardation, and The Arc of the United States.

Four points described that indicate I should be cautious about:

1. Although the site uses AAMR as a source, the definition is not the official definition of mental retardation.
2. The descriptions of the levels of mental retardation do not mention the standard deviation.
3. The authors give a lot of information as fact, but they do not cite the facts or statistics.
4. Some of the information on the site can be misleading, such as an entire section devoted to putting the blame on the mother of the child.

Other Health Impairments

http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/COPT/intro/otherhealth.html

How do the authors of the website create a sense of authority within the website?

The name of the website, Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc. gives the website a sense of authority.

Four points described that I was drawn to:

1. The way the information was written made the site easy to understand.
2. The site gives several statistics.
3. The site has good links.
4. The site helps to bring minimal awareness about the needs of children with OHI in the educational setting.

Four points described that indicate I should be cautious about:

1. Although the site gives good statistics, it doe not mention where the statistics come from.
2. There is no scientific based evidence mentioned to support the information given, and without scientific based evidence, the information may be biased or skewed.
3. Although there are links to IDEA and Section 504, it is not mentioned in the article. Therefore, parents who see this website may not understand the process to which they can gain services for their child.
4. There are very few specific details on disabilities, and what disabilities that are discussed are not thoroughly explained and discussed.

Learning Disabilities

http://school.familyeducation.com/learning-disabilities/special-education/34455.html

How do the authors of the website create a sense of authority within the website?

The website looks very professional and the fact that the site is titled family education gives it a sense of authority.

Four points described that I was drawn to:

1. There are good links on the site.
2. There are good stats and citations in the links.
3. The quizzes are easy to use.
4. The site is part of Pearson Education, Inc.

Four points described that indicate I should be cautious about:

1. Self-diagnosis and online diagnosis is dangerous.
2. The site is a dot com site which is a commercial site, which takes away from the credibility of the authors.
3. The quizzes rely on at home behavior.
4. The quizzes also rely on parent’s input, which may be biased or skewed.

Working with ESL Parents

Parent Teacher Interaction Regarding Autism

Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement – Second Edition

Overview of the KTEA-II

Dr. Alan Kaufman and Dr. Nadine Kaufman designed the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Second Edition (KTEA-II). The Kaufmans are part of the clinical faculty at Yale University Department of Child Study in the School of Medicine. Dr. Kaufman is a Clinical Professor of Psychology as well as a lecturer and author, who has written 17 books and more that 175 articles over clinical psychology, neuro-psychology, educational psychology, special education, and school psychology. Nadine Kaufman is a teacher of children with learning disabilities, a learning disability specialist, a school psychologist, and an associate professor.

The Kaufmans designed the KTEA-II to measure all seven areas stipulated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act 2004 (IDEIA) to test for specific learning disabilities – basic reading skills, reading comprehension, mathematics calculation, mathematics reasoning, oral expression, listening comprehension, and written expression. The KTEA-II was also designed to help clinicians identify and analyze errors. The test provides an empirical basis and uses common language to discuss results. The KTEA-II also offers a framework for instructional purposes.  The test is an individual based test and does have a brief form for older individuals. The KTEA-II has norms tables that allow the test to be scored at both grade level and age level. The test was designed to measure academic achievement of individuals from four and a half years of age to twenty-five. The KTEA-II is a curriculum-based instrument that provides both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessments in reading, mathematics, written language, and oral language. The testing sample is representative of the population in the areas of sex, race, and socioeconomic status.

The test gives the administrator the ability to identify where exactly the examinee is making errors, which allows the administrator to recommend specific remediation. The KTEA-II is flexible with start points for different levels at the administrator’s discretion. It is recommended that before the test is administered the administrator should be fully familiar with the test and practice administration and scoring. When meeting a new examinee, the administrator should first establish a rapport with the examinee. Encouraging the child to point is important in the administration of the KTEA-II. It is important to remember no feedback is allowed, neither are calculators.

There are some disadvantages in giving the KTEA-II. For instance, it is easy to administer, but takes much longer than reported in the book. Hand scoring is very time consuming. There are no measures to score a student over the sixth grade level or thirteen years of age on phonological awareness. As a tutor of a child over the age of thirteen and in the eighth grade, I see this as a major problem. My client has poor phonological awareness. Therefore, throughout the semester we have been building his phonological and phonemic awareness skills. If the Abilene Independent School District were to use this test to assess my client’s learning disabilities, they would not be able to pinpoint where he is having difficulties.

Most of the KTEA-II subtests or composites are deemed reliable. However, the word recognition fluency and decoding fluency consisted of only one trial. Therefore, the reliability of those subtests is questionable. The interrater reliability of the KTEA-II is high and averages around .90. The standard error of measurement varies according to grade level and subtest administered with means ranging from 2.40 to 6.42. The intercorrelation of subtests and composites vary on the test given, some subtests have near perfect correlation, while other subtests have low correlation (.40). The band intervals vary depending on the subtest given.

Another potential problem with the KTEA-II is that the error tables stop before the end of the test at some grade levels. The test authors state that the test is an excellent tool in determining gifted and talented placement. However, a student that is in the sixth grade that finishes a test at far above grade level cannot be scored. This problem also arises in the Reading Comprehension subtests. For instance, if a student starts at a sixth grade level and finishes every section, without reaching meeting the discontinue rule, it is impossible to score the student. Another problem found, is one of my examinees scored a raw score of 84 on oral expression. Unfortunately, the oral expression grade equivalent corresponding to subtest raw scores table has a 77+ at the 9.8 grade level and no raw scores from there to the 12.6 grade level. On the age equivalent corresponding to subtest raw scores, the age equivalent level stops at 19:0. However, the test is supposed to be acceptable for individuals up to the age of 25.

Finally, another disadvantage noted is that the basal and ceiling is different for many of the sections of the tests. For instance, one section may say six errors in one section of the subtest, or three errors for the entire subtest. The discontinue rule also requires the examiner to continue to the end of each subtest section even though the rule was met. Until the administrator is fully comfortable with the KTEA-II, this could cause confusion and difficulties administrating.

Assessment Results

I tested two middle school students with the KTEA-II. One child, Damien, is a seventh grade student with autism who receives special education services at Clack Middle School in Abilene, Texas. At the time of the assessment, Damien was thirteen years five months and ten days of age. The other child, Dylan, is a sixth grade student who is in Pre-Advanced Placement classes at Clack Middle School. At the time of the assessment, Dylan was twelve years five months and ten days of age. The results of the testing are as follows:

Composite / Subtest	Dylan				Damien
	Raw Score	Stand Score	%ile	Grade =	Raw Score	Stand Score	%ile	Grade =
Letter & Word Recognition	80	121	92	11.6	69	104	61	8.4
Reading Comprehension	66	106	66	8.6	60	94	34	6.1
Reading Composite	-	115	84	-	-	99	47	-
Math Concepts & Apps	55	93	32	5.5	65	103	58	8.8
Math Computation	28	86	18	4.7	23	42	<0.1	4.0
Math Composite	-	76	5	-	-	71	3	-
Written Expression	193	107	68	9.0	188	97	42	6.8
Spelling	53	118	88	11.2	50	108	70	9.2
Written Language Comp.	-	117	87	-	-	103	58	-
Listening Comprehension	45	115	84	7.8	21	76	5	1.7
Oral Expression	84	135	99	12.6	50	62	1	1.3
Oral Language Composite	-	131	98	-	-	66	1	-
Comprehensive Achievement Composite	-	100	50	-	-	82	12	-
Phonological Awareness	24	106	89.5	6.8	23	105	63	6.8
Nonsense Word Decoding	45	134	98	12.6	45	127	96	12.2

The test results show that Dylan is at grade-level with his phonological awareness. Dylan is above grade-level in nonsense word decoding, oral expression, listening comprehension, spelling, written expression, reading comprehension, and letter and word recognition. Dylan is below grade-level in math concepts and applications (4.7) as well as math computations (4.7). Dylan’s percentile scores in math are as follows – 32 for math concepts and applications, 18 for math computations, and the overall composite score placed Dylan in the 5^th percentile. Therefore, it is recommended that Dylan be further assessed in math to determine intervention strategies to be used.  Dylan’s overall comprehensive achievement composite places him at the 50^th percentile for his grade level.

In language, Dylan’s strengths are as follows: consonant blends, consonant digraphs, r-controlled vowels, silent letter, hard/soft c g s, initial/final sound, misordered sounds. Dylan showed weakness in the following: wrong vowel, short vowel, prefix/word beginning, unpredictable patterns, and insertion/omission. In reading and listening comprehension, Dylan was strong in literal comprehension and average in inferential comprehension. Dylan was strong in the task, structure, and capitalization areas of expression and average at word form, word meaning, and punctuation. Dylan was strong on all skills dealing with phonological awareness. the math skills that Dylan showed strengths in were addition, subtraction, regrouping, and subtracting smaller from larger. Dylan’s math computation skills were weak in the following areas: multiplication, division, fraction, wrong operation, and fact or computation. Dylan was not at an average level on any of the skill levels. Dylan’s math concepts and applications skills were strong in addition, subtraction, multiplication, geometry, measurement, and multi-step problems. Dylan only showed to be weak in one area – fractions. Dylan was average in the following skill categories: number concepts, division, tables and graphs, and time and money. Dylan completed most of the tests given because he did not meet the criteria for the discontinue rule. However, the tables in the book did not go high enough to reflect his true scores for his grade-level.

The KTEA-II results for Damien show that he is not at grade-level in any area tested. However, the results show Damien is above grade level in letter and word recognition, math concepts and applications, spelling, and nonsense word decoding. Damien is below grade level in the areas of reading comprehension, math computation, written expression, listening comprehension, and oral expression. Damien was below 50^th percentile in the following areas – reading comprehension, which brought his reading composite down; math computation, which placed him at the 3^rd percentile; written expression; and listening comprehension and oral expression.   Damien’s overall comprehensive achievement composite has placed him in the 12^th percentile. It is recommended Damien continue receiving special education services. It is important to note that most of Damien’s subtest scores are typical for a student with autism. He scored above average on the letter and word recognition but below average on reading comprehension, thus placing Damien below average on the reading composite. On the math composite, Damien is above average on the math concepts and applications but far below average on the math computation (<0.1), thus placing him in the 3^rd percentile on the math composite. Similarly Damien was well above average in spelling but below average on written expression. However, the overall written language composite is slightly above average. On the oral language composite, Damien is in the 1^st percentile for his grade-level. Damien was placed at the 1^st percentile in oral expression and 5^th percentile in listening comprehension. Damien’s phonological awareness is at grade-level and his nonsense word decoding is at the 12.2 grade-level, placing him far above his peers.

In language, Damien showed the strengths in the following skill categories: initial blend, medial/final blend, consonant digraphs, short vowels, long vowels, vowel team/diphthong, r-controlled vowels, prefix/word beginning and suffix/inflection, initial/final sound, and misordered sounds. The categories Damien was weak in are as follows: single/double consonant, consonant blend, wrong vowel, silent letter, prefix/word beginning, suffix/inflection, hard/soft c g s, and unpredictable pattern. It is important to note that Damien struggled with any word that did not follow phonological awareness rules. Damien’s comprehension skills were weak in both literal and inferential categories. Damien’s expression skills were strong in structure and word form. he was average with his capitalization and punctuation skills. Damien was weak in task skills in both oral and written expression. Damien was given a picture of a female reporter and her cameraman in the rain. In the background of the picture there are firefighters fighting a fire in the building. Damien was told to write a sentence using the word despite about the picture. Damien’s sentence was as follows: “Despite your camera having cobwebs on it, you cleaned the screen well.” Similarly, Damien was told that he is an intern at a news station. The news reporter is about to go on air and cannot find her script. Damien was told to write a question asking where the script is without using the word “where.” Damien wrote the following: “Did you flush her paper down the toilet for fame?”

Damien was assessed in math computations. His skill levels in addition and regrouping addition were strong. However, his skill levels were weak in subtraction, multiplication, division, fraction, wrong operation, fact or computation, regrouping: subtraction, subtract smaller from larger, and equivalent fraction/common denominator. Damien was not at an average skill level with any of the categories. With math concepts and applications Damien has strengths in addition, subtraction, and measurement. Damien was average with division, geometry, fractions, advanced operations, and multi-step problems. Damien showed weaknesses in the following skill categories: number concepts, multiplication, tables and graphs, time and money, decimals and percents, data investigation, and word problems. The math results show that Damien can often set the problem up and tell how it should be worked; however, he does not have the skills to complete the problem and provide the correct answers. Therefore, it is recommended that Damien continue the use of a calculator as an accommodation as stated in his Individualized Educational Program (IEP).

Overall, I found the testing experience enjoyable. The KTEA-II was simple to administer and simple to score, despite the disadvantages. However, due to my findings and the disadvantages listed, I would not recommend the KTEA-II for gifted and talented placement. The norms tables do not give a true score for students who complete beyond what they should for their grade and age levels. Hand scoring of the KTEA-II is simple, but time consuming. Therefore, I recommend any person administering the KTEA-II to use the computer-scoring instrument. I would also recommend the use of the KTEA-II for professionals assessing students with learning disabilities. The KTEA-II could be an effective tool for Admissions, Review and Dismissal (ARD) teams when determining goals and objectives for an IEP. The KTEA-II effectively allows instructors and faculty to see exactly what the student is struggling with.