Griffiths III – A Case Study Book for Practitioners E-Book

• Herausgeber: Hogrefe Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 383

Beschreibung

Written by world renowned practitioners of the Griffiths Scales of Child Development, Third Edition (Griffiths III), this volume presents individual case studies to assist practitioners and trainees in making full use the Griffiths III to comprehensively assess a child's development. Practitioners will learn about tracking and monitoring development and how to measure the impact of intervention – creating more informed decisions about the management and placement of the child. Two introductory chapters examine the Griffiths III as a child development assessment tool, looking in detail at its psychometric properties and how to use the test to interpret, plan, and understand a child's performance as well as the child's strengths and challenges. Grouped according to five color zones for ease of reading, 15 case studies are presented for children with a wide range of abilities and from 10 different countries. The book is based on four conceptual frameworks: the ICF-CY, ESSENCE, the link between function and intervention, and Ruth Griffith's Avenues of Learning theory. Throughout the examples, the perspective of the child is placed at the center and their voices are included in the plans described. Key concepts, points of importance, and questions for the reader are included at the end of each chapter. The book is aimed at practitioners of the Griffiths III, but it is also of interest to a wider range of developmental practitioners, including child psychologists, child psychiatrists, pediatricians, and child psychotherapists.

Leseprobe

Griffiths III – A Case Study Book for Practitioners

Louise Stroud

Elizabeth Green

(Editors)

Library of Congress of Congress Cataloging in Publication information for the print version of this book is available via the Library of Congress Marc Database under the Library of Congress Control Number 2022938521

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Griffiths III : a case study book for practitioners / Louise Stroud, Elizabeth Green

(editors).

Other titles: Griffiths 3 | Griffiths three

Names: Stroud, Louise (Louise A.), editor. | Green, Elizabeth (Elizabeth M.), editor.

Description: Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220238006 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220240809 | ISBN 9780889375918

(softcover) | ISBN 9781616765910 (PDF) | ISBN 9781613345917 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Child development—Testing. | LCSH: Child development—Testing—Case studies.

Classification: LCC RJ51.D48 G75 2022 | DDC 618.92/0075—dc23

© 2023 by Hogrefe Publishing

www.hogrefe.com

The authors and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information contained in this text is in accord with the current state of scientific knowledge, recommendations, and practice at the time of publication. In spite of this diligence, errors cannot be completely excluded. Also, due to changing regulations and continuing research, information may become outdated at any point. The authors and publisher disclaim any responsibility for any consequences which may follow from the use of information presented in this book.

Registered trademarks are not noted specifically as such in this publication. The use of descriptive names, registered names, and trademarks does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Original illustrations on the section title pages by Sarah Stroud.

Cover image: Reprinted here with permission from ARICD, ©2022 ARICD

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Format: EPUB

ISBN 978-0-88937-591-8 (print) • ISBN 978-1-61676-591-0 (PDF) • ISBN 978-1-61334-591-7 (EPUB)

http://doi.org/10.1027/00591-000

Citability: This EPUB includes page numbering between two vertical lines (Example: |1|) that corresponds to the page numbering of the print and PDF ebook versions of the title.

About the Editors

Louise Stroud, PhD, is a registered clinical psychologist and full professor employed in the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She is also the lead researcher for the Association for Research in Infant and Child Development (ARICD, https://www.aricd.ac.uk/) based in Manchester, UK. Her specific research interests include the study of the psychology of people and their lives, the development of children, neuropsychology, and ecopsychology.

Elizabeth Green, MD, is a retired developmental pediatrician, former consultant in pediatric rehabilitation at Chailey Heritage Clinical Services, former medical director of South Downs Health NHS Trust in Brighton, and past president of ARICD. She currently holds the research chair and is a trustee of ARICD. She is also a trustee of the Chailey Heritage Foundation and research associate at the Psychology Department at the Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

|v|In Memory of Our Friend and Colleague

Rosemary O’Connell (July 8, 1946 – July 16, 2021)

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Section I Introduction

Chapter 1 An Introduction to the Griffiths III Case Study Book

Section II Griffiths III – A Child Development Assessment Tool

Chapter 2 Understanding the Griffiths III Test Properties to Understand a Child’s Performance

Chapter 3 Using Griffiths III to Interpret, Plan, and Report a Child’s Needs

Section III Griffiths III Case Studies

Zone 1

Chapter 4 Divoc: School Readiness in a Child With Developmental Language Disorder

Chapter 5 Mary: Nonstandardized Use of Griffiths III as a Qualitative Assessment of a Child Over 6 Years

Chapter 6 Poppy: A Child With Hearing Impairment and Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection

Zone 2

Chapter 7 Hugo: A Brazilian Child Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Chapter 8 Jamie: Assessing a Child With High Functioning Autism

Chapter 9 Eli: Assessing a Child With Low Functioning Autism

Chapter 10 Victor: Resilience in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Zone 3

Chapter 11 Johan: A Swedish Boy Who Fits the ESSENCE Description

Chapter 12 Sam: Neurodevelopmental Concerns in a Preterm Infant

Zone 4

Chapter 13 Elena: Assessing a Child With Down Syndrome

Chapter 14 Ben: A Boy With a Mosaic Form of Chromosome 18q21.1 Deletion

Chapter 15 Milly: A Child With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

Chapter 16 Ava: A Girl With Phenylketonuria and Typical Development

Zone 5

Chapter 17 Leo: A Child With Variability Above the Range of Typical Development

Chapter 18 James: A Child With Variability Within the Range of Typical Development

Section IV Best Practice Strategies and Griffiths III

Chapter 19 Griffiths III Best Practice Strategies Emerging From the Cases Presented

Chapter 20 A Final Word

Appendix

Peer Commentaries

|xi|Foreword

While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.

– Angela Schwindt

Illustrations by Sarah Stroud

|xii|The publication of Griffiths III – A Case Study Book for Practitioners in 2022 as the world begins to emerge from the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic could not be timelier. Many lessons have and will be learnt from the pandemic, but the precious lesson that children need both play and school to flourish must never be forgotten. While children were mercifully far less impacted by the virus itself, we have learnt hard lessons about how children can be affected when school is delivered online, when play and sport are no longer possible, when meeting up with friends is prohibited, and when routine and life as it is known stop.

Our children have shown remarkable resilience and courage in the last two years, but we know that not all have come through unscathed. Children from the most socially disadvantaged communities and children with health and developmental problems have paid a heavy price, and so it is these groups that need specific focus, care, and attention as we recover from the pandemic.

The problems that face us can feel daunting. However, many of the solutions we need come very simply from listening to the children and families we serve. Children and young people have been articulate and engaged – both in describing the problems as they see them, but then also crucially in showing us where the solutions lie. The children and young people who work with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, RCPCH&Us, have been very clear about what they believe mental health services should look like, how virtual consultations should be set up, and crucially how they want to be central to service planning and development. Fundamentally, our children are telling us they have a voice, and they want to be listened to and valued.

Louise Stroud and Elizabeth Green have done a masterful job of placing the child at the center of this book, and the voice of children and their families ring through the pages. This is not a simple training manual on how to undertake the Griffiths III, a standardized test. This book is so much more: It makes the clear case for treating each child and each family as a unique entity. It consistently emphasizes why it is crucial to adapt and modify how the test is undertaken and interpreted to the context of the child in the moment. Stroud and Green achieve what every pediatrician hopes to achieve in each clinical encounter – the child is considered in the context of their health, family, education, social situation, and so much more. Crucially, they make the case for acknowledging and celebrating diversity – diversity of culture, parenting, socio-economic background, and more.

I commend this book to all who work in the field of child development and more widely with children who are not following a typical developmental pathway. Hearing the voice of the child in all we do and underpinning our work with compassion and kindness should be fundamental. This book will help you achieve that.

Camilla Kingdon, MA MBChB FRCPCH

Consultant Neonatologist, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

President of Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

London, UK

|xiii|Preface

Louise Stroud and Elizabeth Green

Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is the last children’s book Dr. Seuss authored (Geisel, 1990), and it is his guide to the journey of life. It is a brief story that reminds us that we can be the things we want to be, with a little bit of work and will power. Without ignoring the basic fact of life that everything does not always go ideally, the book encourages us to get out there and make things happen. According to Dr. Seuss, waiting for something to happen is the worst choice that anyone can make; for nothing can be gained, if nothing is risked. Similarly, Pierre van der Merwe in his book The Adventures of Auggy (Book Two): The Magic Lily Pad tells the story of Auggy, a very popular little froggy, who lived in a pond. Legend had it that if Auggy, or anyone for that matter, saw the magic lily-pad on the pond and made a wish, their wish would come true. The magic lily-pad got its name from the reflection of the sun and moon on the pond which became like golden and silver lily-pads, as the sun and moon moved across the pond. The message behind the story of Auggy and the magic lily-pad is that there is still magic even when everything is not what one would want or think it to be (Babb & van der Merwe, 1997). These two children’s stories provide a lovely start to this Griffiths III Case Study Book for Practitioners. Their messages of courage, will power, risk, and believing in magic are most appropriate not only for the practitioner with an interest in children and their development, but also for the children they serve.

This Case Book is a professional reference book. Although aimed particularly at Griffiths III practitioners, it will also be of interest to a wide range of developmental practitioners. The approach taken in this book is to use individual case studies to demonstrate how Griffiths III can be used in a comprehensive assessment of a child’s development, of their strengths and their needs. It aims to offer practitioners practical examples of the application of aspects of Griffiths III beyond simple first-level training, to administer test items correctly. It also meets the need to clarify how the test may be used with a nontypical population.

It must be said that compiling this Case Book did not involve a description or story that fell easily and smoothly into sequence. It was a process that was garnered from many sources and from many people. Some of the Case Book comes in the form of fragments from professional men and women who have looked on developing children, with a unique and unrelenting eye. It comes from men and women who carry the germ of knowledge, implanted somewhere deeply in their beings, a place where a curious, natural rhythm exists and a kind of magic. It describes the interplay between universal and unique contexts in shaping child developmental assessment, specifically using Griffiths III. Ruth Griffiths described this as the sixth sense (Griffiths, 1968).

In this Case Book for Practitioners, the Griffiths Scales of Child Development, 3rd edition, or Griffiths III as it is known, will be described. Griffiths III is a test which is instrumental in determining whether a child is developing age appropriately, or whether a general or specific developmental difficulty is indicated. Griffiths III is used in the assessment of all children but particularly in the assessment of children with disabilities and the creation of appropriate intervention plans. Practitioners need to understand the test to formulate it |xiv|successfully with a child with disability. To this end they have asked for a practical book with examples to deepen their understanding of the test and clarify how the test may be used with a nontypical population.

The assessment of development involves a comprehensive investigation of a child’s abilities, including motor, social, and cognitive abilities, by direct observation, testing, and reports from caregivers. The rapidly shifting nature of children’s development poses problems for the assessment of young children. Of the various methods for assessing child development, Griffiths III is among those that have been accorded world-wide recognition, especially by pediatricians and psychologists. It is not simply a screening test, for it enables a thorough, holistic diagnosis through analysis of the developmental profile. Through periodic reexaminations of children, we can bring to light developmental trends and establish developmental baselines.

In the past, the working child toiled in the fields, and later, in the factories of the Industrial Revolution. The 20th century saw the rise of the free-range child, and more recently we have experienced the emergence of the age of the managed child with the helicopter parent hovering overhead trying to control things. Today, more specifically, we face the challenge of finding a new recipe for assessment of children growing up in the information age. However, regardless of the period of time in which they find themselves, children thrive when they have time and space to breathe, to chill and get bored sometimes, to relax, to take risks and make mistakes, to dream and have fun on their own terms, even to fail. Their appetite for change leads them to be curious about the world about them. They love to play. They need to play. It connects them to the real world – their real world.

Nell and Drew (2013) state that children learn to make their own decisions when they play and experience freedom in making those choices. They begin to see connections between choice and the consequences or results of that choice, this inspires creative thinking and delight. Because children eventually find it more important to be part of play with their friends than to satisfy their own wants and needs at that moment, children learn self-control. And self-control has been shown to lead to success in later years, especially in today’s information age, where distractions are part of daily life. Play provides children with opportunities to develop flexibility in their thinking and decision making, which is a vital life skill.

Play is a science and an essential ingredient in optimal child development. It has been described as a lighting up of the brain. The Griffiths Scales are not play-based scales but have been structured since Ruth Griffiths’ first publication to include the types of play children enjoy at different stages of their development. Because children are intrinsically motivated to enjoy play, observing a child performing a structured activity in a play context offers much more information about the child’s strengths and any barriers to development than a simple pass/fail.

All children should have equal access to play, which is fundamental to childhood, and yet it has been found that disabled children have significantly fewer opportunities to access, and more barriers to, play settings and activities than their nondisabled peers. According to Sense’s website resource Making Play Inclusive: A Toolkit for Play Settings (https://www.sense.org.uk/get-support/support-for-children/play-toolkits/), the key principles for inclusive play include the following:

Equality does not mean treating everyone the same; it is about making the adjustments that enable all children to take part.

|xv|Every child is unique. It is important to take the time to get to know each child, prepare for and understand their needs, and know where to go for further advice.

Give children time to respond, explore, and play.

A can-do attitude is really important – always focus on what the child can do and understand what achievement means for each child.

Manage risk effectively; don’t let it get in the way of play.

Listen, discuss, plan, and consult with parents.

Where possible, treatments and therapeutic interventions should be delivered through play.

As practitioners with an interest in child development, it is necessary for us to establish children’s developmental baselines as well as their individual barriers to development. For example, in the past this need led the developmental psychologist Plooij to speak of regression periods, the child neuropsychologist Vygotsky to highlight the importance of zones of proximal development, the cognitive psychologist Piaget to suggest that cognitive development progresses as change happens in the child’s knowledge systems, and the child psychologist Ruth Griffiths to create the Griffiths Scales of Child Development.

Dr. Ruth Florence Griffiths was born on September 2, 1895. She experienced an isolated and troubled childhood (which she seemed to remember forever after). Dr. Brian Burne records that it was perhaps these early experiences that laid the roots for her later meticulous observation of young children, her love for them, and her pleasure in observing their personalities unfold and blossom. J. C. Flugel also referred to Griffith’s observation of the free behavior of children, her rigorous control of experimental conditions, and her ingenuity, tact, and perseverance, as being full of promise for the future. How right he was, as Griffiths went on to design and create the Griffiths Scales which were published in 1954.

When the Griffiths Scales were first introduced, the psychometric conceptions of intelligence were emerging and were to influence psychometric measurement for the next three generations. These narrow conceptions included verbal, visual-spatial, and mathematical abilities. The Griffiths Scales brought with them an innovative system for developmental assessment, as Griffiths was keenly aware of the importance of interactions between the various avenues of learning. She advocated a broad-based approach to understanding development (i.e., the processes and rates at which growth and maturation of a child’s attributes and abilities take place) and the concept of the observation of children in play. She was aware of the importance of social and emotional developmental factors and the interplay between these and development.

This Case Book puts the perspective of the child at the center and considers their voices. It considers their identities and developmental stages. It embraces their agency through promoting advocacy. It does not distrust or discount other voices, such as those of adult experts, but rather seeks to fulfill the child’s need to be heard within the considerations of barriers that may challenge the fulfillment of this right. This is a deliberate and reflexive account of the child’s story within a context of diversity. It is an acknowledgement of the agency of children and the insertion of their voices into their stories, while being guided by their accounts of their lives, and the accounts of their lives by others. In essence, this is an insider–outsider approach, which makes for a child-centric Case Book for Practitioners using Griffiths III. It aims to assist practitioners to better track and monitor development, plan and measure the impact of intervention, and inform decisions about management and placement of the child. It hopes to aid in the creation of a community of practice among |xvi|Griffiths III users worldwide. A place where the voices of the children we assess are listened to and heard. The Chinese symbol for “listen” captures this most aptly, as it is made up of four parts – namely, the ears, the eyes, the heart, and undivided attention. This is reflected visually below:

References

Babb, N., & van der Merwe, P. (1997). The adventures of Auggy. Book Two: The magic Lily-Pad. Young Edwards.

Geisel, T. S. (Dr. Seuss). (1990). Oh the places you’ll go!HarperCollins.

Griffiths, R. (1968). The psycho-diagnostic approach to problems of the very young. In E.Miller (Ed.), Foundations of child psychiatry.Pergomon Press.

Nell, M. L., & Drew, W. F. (2013). From play to practice: Connecting teachers’ play to childrens’ learning. The National Association for the Education of Young Children.

|1|Section IIntroduction

All you need to know about children for children – you learn best from them!

– Loris Malaguzzi

|9|Section IIGriffiths III – A Child Development Assessment Tool

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.

– Walt Streightiff

|13|Chapter 2Understanding the Griffiths III Test Properties to Understand a Child’s Performance

Hilary Lane and Johan Cronje

This chapter outlines the variables that need to be considered when carrying out a comprehensive developmental assessment using Griffiths III. In essence, it provides an understanding of Griffiths III within the context of testing and assessment in order to better understand the child and their developmental needs

It addresses the complex nature of infants’ and young children’s development from the universal to the unique, and the impact of innate, environmental, and cultural influences on how assessments should be authentic and meaningful. The psychometric properties of Griffiths III are explained so clinicians can understand how to use the test to understand a child’s performance and their developmental strengths and needs.

The Interplay of Universal and Unique in Every Child – The Nature of Variation and Culture

Babies’ brains are designed to learn. They develop and grow by creating a complex network of connections between the billions of nerve cells they are born with. Their developing brains leave them with an uninhibited flexibility that allows them to explore, create, and learn flexibly and effectively, which is what makes each child’s web of development so unique. The developing brain is influenced by innate as well as many external factors including experiences, relationships, and the environment.

Societal and cultural influences on children’s development are considerable, while at the same time, children are unique with individual character strengths and abilities. Individual family interactions bring with them cultural beliefs, values, and behaviors (Maschinot, 2008). The child’s ways of interacting with the people and world around them shape how they think and behave. Thus, children play an active role in their own development, which is influenced by biological factors as well as by their interactions with the environment. This has long been an underlying premise underpinning the development of the Griffiths Scales.

Recent research by both Ertem and colleagues (2018) and Villar and colleagues (2019) has confirmed that the sequence and timing of the attainment of key neurodevelopmental milestones and associated behaviors in early childhood are likely innate and universal, as long as health, nutrition, medical care, and educational needs are met. These studies advance the understanding of early childhood development by showing that many milestones in numerous domains are similarly attained across sexes and countries. Markers of neurodevelopment such as cognition, attention, language, motor, and visual capacity are |14|fundamental human functions, and their development has been reported to reflect the rapid growth and maturation of the brain (Knickmeyer et al., 2008).

At each developmental stage, there are certain tasks that children need to master to prepare them for the next stage of development. Later skills are often dependent on the achievement of earlier skills in the same domain. For example, children must learn to sit before they can stand. Though many skills and abilities of infants and small children go through this predictable sequence, it is known that they can do so at different rates and that qualitative differences can occur. These unstable developmental changes make the measurement of young children unique compared with that for older children (Bedford et al., 2013). Some skills are achieved at a predictable age, such as smiling by 8 weeks, while others vary in timescale, sometimes widely, such as walking, which is said to occur between 10 and 18 months. Sometimes, developmental variation can occur such as late walking or late talking, which may be familial. Some conditions can lead to developmental delay but are correctable, such as failure to thrive, hypothyroidism, or social isolation.

Check Your Progress

Factors to consider which influence early child development

Innate factors

Genetic make-up

Prenatal environment

Temperament

Basic safety

Education

Family support

Environmental factors

Nutrition

Housing

Medical care

Thus early infant and child development is known to be rapid, dynamic, interactive, and variable. It is both universal and unique. Griffiths III helps the clinician to capture the unique developmental progression of each child across domains or avenues of learning, while at the same time acknowledging their individual background and culture.

Check Your Progress

Remember there is an interplay of universal and unique factors that shape each child’s individual development.

Many cultural and environmental influences along with innate factors affect a child’s development. Think about the different ways they can have an impact.

A clinician needs to be aware of all of the influences that can impact development, as they carry out a developmental assessment.

|15|Authentic Assessment of Children

The rapidly shifting nature of a child’s early development poses problems for gaining an authentic assessment of their strengths, needs, and overall development. Early assessment and early intervention are considered crucial for growth and development, because experiences during early childhood can influence outcomes across the entire course of an individual’s life (United Nations, 2010; WHO, 2007). Assessment has been defined by Snow and Van Hemel (2008), in their book Early Childhood Assessment: Why, What, and How, as the gathering of information on a child’s background and their current skills, and using that information to help the child develop further within the context of the family, caregiving, and learning environments. Assessment, of course, is not an end in itself. Its goals are to obtain useful and accurate information about a child’s skills, functioning, and environment to assist parents, health care providers, early educationalists, and others to better understand, plan for, and support the development and inclusion of a child with a disability (WHO, 2012).

Theories and new practices regarding developmental assessment continue to emerge. These include the use of qualitative and quantitative information, cultural sensitivity, and multidimensional approaches, as well as authentic and functional assessments. The focus of many of the proposed models of assessment, such as dynamic assessment and authentic assessment, is on meaningful application using real-life tasks and a focus on interaction and intervention. Therefore, it is essential to include both objective and subjective information about a child when conducting a comprehensive assessment. A key component of clinical assessment is measurement that can combine the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches to provide a better understanding of the child (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018). Objectively, standardized developmental assessments provide valuable information by measuring functional abilities in children and identifying any deviations from the norm.

Parent and Professional Reports

Direct contacts with parents and other people familiar with the child are important starting points for better understanding and anticipating the needs of children with disabilities, and their families. Assessments are always more authentic when information is gathered from multiple perspectives and especially with naturalistic information from the various everyday settings of the child. The British Psychological Society (2011) recommends that clinicians always formulate from a broad-based, integrated, and multimodel perspective that locates personal meaning within its wider systemic, organizational, and societal contexts.

A comprehensive, authentic assessment will include working with parents and caregivers, gaining information from home and early education settings, and looking at the child’s coping skills and behavior, as well as the important assessment of their neurodevelopmental milestones. This is why Griffiths III stresses that the voices of those most familiar with the child must be central to the process, because the goal of an early developmental assessment is to gain the most accurate picture of a child’s development and capacities.

|16|Observation of Child and Context

Griffiths III ensures that subjective information is gathered directly from the parent or caregiver and others, but also by engagement with the child. As part of a comprehensive assessment, direct observation and engagement with the child are both considered essential components. Positive engagement is also considered key to developmental gains (American Psychological Association, 2018), and the focus on engagement and connection using the developmental tasks in Griffiths III helps to target a child’s functional abilities beyond the assessment process.

Challenges in the assessment of children have been reported because a child’s development is dynamic in nature, and developmental domains are individually complex and interrelated. Development tends not to occur in a linear fashion, and in the younger child it slips in and out of “normality.” For the first few years of life, the developmental domains are interconnected, and the major transitions in development occur in a dynamic interaction among the child, the social environment, and the context.

In a clinic setting, it is important to focus on the individual child in context. Factors known to affect a child’s performance on testing include hunger, tiredness, or being in a strange place. Therefore, it must be remembered that a single test administered at a particular age provides only a snapshot of a child’s abilities (Bedford et al., 2013). Griffiths III uses a range of test items and tasks that provide samples of, and a measure of, everyday behaviors in the child being assessed.

Research into the appropriateness of using the Griffiths Scales in different countries has revealed the need for adaptations of some tasks, translations of the instructions, and for country-specific normative information to be gathered. Studies have shown that the Griffiths Scales provide valuable diagnostic information about a range of developmental disorders in a wide variety of contexts across various countries. In order for a culturally appropriate standardized test such as Griffiths III to be used and available in contexts other than for the one for which it was developed, the solution appears to lie not in developing an indigenous test but rather in the adaptation of the measure. Creativity, ingenuity, and knowledge of the behavioral criteria associated with a construct in a specific culture are required when adapting test content or test tasks.

Check Your Progress

Developmental assessments need to be authentic and relevant to understand, plan for, and support the development and inclusion of a child in everyday contexts.

It is essential to include both objective and subjective information from multiple perspectives, especially from those who are most familiar with the child, when conducting a comprehensive assessment.

In a clinical setting, focus on engaging directly with the child and their presentation on the day.

Be aware of, and sensitive to, family differences in culture which may affect child-rearing practices and attitudes to illness and disability.

|17|Understanding Griffiths III: The Test

One of the most important considerations for any developmental assessment is that the purpose in carrying out the assessment must be the primary focus to guide assessment decisions. Once the purpose is identified, the clinician chooses an appropriate assessment tool or measure to enable the child to show their unique and individual pattern of skills across a range of developmental domains. Standardized developmental tests have been viewed as the gold standard for outcome assessment, providing an objective, valid, and reliable evaluation of a child’s development in comparison with the norm, and typically they provide standardized scores that can be used to classify developmental level (Mazer et al., 2012). Assessment measures with strong contextual validity and reliability allow us to better understand children’s development and needs, which in turn allows for the design of more effective interventions.

Check Your Progress

Before the assessment, identify the purpose and only then decide on your assessment tools.

It is important to understand the psychometric properties of the assessment measures you use, including the validity and reliability of the test as well as any limitations to its use.

Item Gradients

Bracken (2004) defines item gradients