Erin Ruth

SPED 414
Cumulative Assessment
Part 1: Curriculum-Based Assessment
2 developmental Areas administered: Fine motor and Gross motor
Identifying Information:
Childs Name: Shannon Gant
DOB: October 20, 2009
Age: 4
Examiner: Erin Ruth
Location: Chesterbrook Academy
Date of Assessment: December 11, 2013
Date of Report: December 12, 2013
Test(s) Used: AEPS (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale & Family Interview)
Language Used: English
Background Information:
Birth and medical: Shannon was born at a full-term time. She however, was born with
special needs from the beginning. The disorder that Shannon actually has is called Triple X
Syndrome. This is also sometimes called triplo-X, trisomy X, and XXX syndrome. This takes
places when there is an extra X chromosome in females. I am not aware that she is on any
medication for medical problems. I just know that Shannon is behind developmentally and
has problems physically as well.

Developmental History: Shannon is far behind developmentally. I am not sure exactly what
age she reached certain developmental milestones such as walking. She is still not potty-
trained, and Shannon still cannot speak at all. They were aware of her disorder when she
was born, and therefore have been watching her intently for a while.

Educational Experiences: Shannon attends school everyday, Monday through Friday. In the
morning, from 8:00 am to 12:00pm, she attends a Head Start school where she works on
speech therapy. Then, from noon until around 5:00pm Monday through Friday, Shannon
attends Chesterbrook Academy. Chesterbrook is a day care center that has a strict,
schooling atmosphere. Shannon also goes to physical and occupational therapy every week.
She works a lot with stuffing things into containers and working on kindles to isolate her
fingers as well.

Method of Assessment: (including rationale):
The method that I used was the AEPS assessment tool. AEPS stands for Assessment,
and Programming System for Infants and Children. This tool allows you to assess and score
children on a multiple different questions, areas, and tasks. It is a criterion referenced
based observational tool that allows an observer to watch an infant or child across all
domains. The assessment is typically done multiple times a year and a child is given a score
of 0 to 2 based on tasks that they are able to complete. It has areas for an observer to take
notes and to write things that the child could and could not do. AEPS measures six different
developmental areas. The areas are fine motor, gross motor, cognitive, adaptive, social
communication, and social.
I decided to focus on fine motor and gross motor skills, because I do not think that
Shannon is developmentally ready to be assessed with the other areas quite yet. She cannot
speak and she doesnt interact with her peers enough yet for me to be able to assess her in
those areas yet. Other than sometimes pulling or scratching her classmates, she does not
really communicate with them at all. I have however learned through the family interview
that Shannon is working on fine and gross motor skills and goals, so I thought that these
two areas would be best to assess with the AEPS form. From speaking with her mother for
the family interview and learning of her goals that were all related to either fine or gross
motor skills, I was reassured that these two areas would be best for me to observe. It would
be very hard to do this assessment on areas that a child has not reached yet.

Results of Assessment:
I noticed a lot of areas that Shannon does really well and some areas that she needs
improvement on in relation to fine motor skills. She is really good at using two hands to
grab objects and she knows how to use scissors. Shannon however does not realize that
you can cut out images and shapes with scissors, she just knows that you can cut paper
with them. Shannon can get a good grip on a pen or pencil that she is holding. She however
cannot write any letters or anything that resembles a letter. She still just scribbles on the
paper. Shannon therefore received a lot of zeros in the emergent writing section on the
assessment form. Some skills that Shannon can do independently are using two hands to
manipulate objects, cutting paper in two, writing using three-finger grip and using three
fingers to hold a writing implement. She does not write anything specific, but she can
scribble holding a writing utensil properly. A skill that is emerging in Shannon are holding
objects in one hand while manipulating things in the other. There are a lot of things that
Shannon needs some help to improve on. She has not displayed a lot of signs of emergent
writing other than scribbling. She cannot copy letters or simple shapes at all. She cannot
draw using representational figures either. Because she has begun to scribble however, I
am hopeful that she will be able to write one day in the future!
In relation to gross motor skills, Shannon needs some improvement with balancing
and running. She can run, but only for about 3 seconds. She cannot balance on one foot at
all, because her standing is very unstable. Shannon however does know how to avoid
objects when she is in motion. She can jump in place and is good with using balls. She can
kick, bounce, and throw a ball. She just needs some helping catching it sometimes. She does
not know how to ride a bike either. She can sit on it and move it with her feet, but she
cannot put her feel on the pedals and move them. Shannon can alternate feet walking up
and down stairs, walk up and down stairs, jump forward and in place, jump down from
something, bounce and throw a ball, and hop independently. She received a score of 2 on
these items. Shannon has other skills that appear to be emerging, but are not quite there
yet. These skills include running, catching and catching a ball. She can only run for about 3
or 4 steps and then stops. There are a lot of areas that Shannon needs to help improving.
She has trouble avoiding obstacles while running, balancing on one foot, skipping, riding
and steering a bike, and pedaling and steering a two-wheeler bike. She was not able to ride
a bike properly at all.

Shannons Fine Motor Area Raw Score is 9.
Shannons Fine Motor Area Percent Score is 0.3%.
Shannons Gross motor Area Raw Score is 15.
Shannons Gross Motor Area Percent Score is 0.44117%.

Summary (across the 2 developmental areas):
Across Shannons major strengths and areas of concern across the 2 AEPS developmental
areas, I think that Shannon needs a little more help with fine motor skills. She knows how
to grasp things, now she needs to learn what to do with things once she grasps them.
Shannon loved picking up this little bucket with both hands and swinging it around. She
also loved picked up crayons that were sitting near her. I think that she could use some
more improvement in her gross motor skills in relation to balance as well. She has trouble
avoiding objects and cannot balance very well at all. I think that Shannon will eventually
reach some developmental milestones, it will just take a lot longer than normally
developing children. She is very persistent about opening and closing books, grasping small
objects, and holding writing utensils in her hand. She seems to really enjoy turning the
pages of books. According to her mother, Shannon really enjoys playing different games on
an ipad as well. In relation to gross motor skills, she seems to enjoy walking and jumping,
but has a hard time running and avoiding objects that are in front of her.

Data Sheet Attached

Part II: Summary & Critique
1. Conclusions about the child: Shannon has a lot of strengths and weaknesses that I
observed. I noticed that in both developmental areas, she can grasp and hold a lot of
things, but then she doesnt really know what to do after that. For example, she
knows how to get a good grip on a pencil or silverware, but then she doesnt know
how to use them after that. In relation to gross motor skills, she can walk and run for
some short distances, but she needs more help in being stable and running for a
longer distance. It appears that Shannon is in the beginning stages of development,
but needs to improve a lot more. I think that Shannon has begun to understand what
people say to her, but that she cannot respond however. I am very impressed with
how far Shannon has come and am hopeful that certain skills will emerge in the
future.

2. Comparison & critique of the three assessment methods: I found some strengths and
limitations for all of the assessment methods that we used for our target children.
The environmental assessment was a method that I really enjoyed doing. It was nice
to observe Shannon in an environment that she is in every day. It was nice that you
could just watch the child and examine the room to find all the answers that you
were looking for, and it was easy to find things that would be good
recommendations to change or fix to better Shannons educational and social needs.
I found a ton of information from this assessment and really enjoyed using. The
Family Interview was a good tool to use as well. It was a nice outline to follow to
gather information from a family about a particular child. I had never really done
anything like this before, so this was a good start for how to get information. It was
hard for me to get in contact with Shannons mother for a while. I randomly saw her
at school one day and she agreed to do the interview with me. I didnt have all of the
questions that I wanted to ask in front of me, so I forgot to ask a couple of things that
I wanted to know. Other than not getting all the information that I wanted because it
wasnt by me, there arent a lot of other limitations to this assessment. I really
enjoyed the AEPS assessment. I like that the areas of concentration were separated,
so that you were not looking at the child as a whole. It was nice that the areas were
broken down into separate parts so that you could watch for specific things. I know
that you need to interact with the child during the AEPS assessment, but sometimes
it is nice to watch what a child does from the background so that they dont change
how they are acting or how they are doing something. One things about all three of
these assessments is that they are all stronger and more useful when they are done
together. I loved how I got different information out of doing all of them, and it
therefore made doing them individually a lot more purposeful.

3. Your Skills as an examiner: I have learned a lot of things about examining children
and about myself over the last semester. I have learned the importance of being
open and honest with family members so that they are aware of what is going on.
This will probably make them more open and willing to share information with you
as well. I learned that you sometimes need to be persistent with family members,
because they have very busy lives and might just forget to respond to you
sometimes. I also realized that giving a family too much information about what you
are doing is better than not enough information. I wanted to continue working on
being very detailed in my writing and documentation when observing children. I
sometimes get caught up in the moment of what the child is doing and forget to
write down important facts that they are doing. I especially got distracted because
my target child attends the school that I taught in, so I knew a lot of the children in
the room. What surprised me the most was how much practice you need to do these
assessments. It would have been very difficult going in and doing this assessment if
we had not first practiced them. I underestimated the time and effort that goes into
learning about them. I am very thankful that we took the time to do an observation
beforehand.

Part I, # 3
AEPS data form is attached