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35 - Assessment in Educational Settings

from Part IV - Clinical Assessment in Specific Settings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2019

By
Benjamin J. Lovett  and
Jason M. Nelson
Edited by
Martin Sellbom  and
Julie A. Suhr
Martin Sellbom
Affiliation:
University of Otago, New Zealand
Julie A. Suhr
Affiliation:
Ohio University
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Summary

Many clinical psychologists either work with children who may be eligible for educational accommodations and special education or else work with adults who have received such services. This chapter provides an overview of assessment issues in educational settings, with a focus on K-12 schooling. We review the legal framework for special education assessment, before considering two controversial issues that interact with that framework: multitiered systems of support that delay comprehensive assessments and the question of whether students with ethnic minority backgrounds are overidentified as having disabilities. We then turn to the assessment of learning disabilities, the largest special education category; we review and evaluate major approaches to learning disability identification. Our next topic is the use of assessment data to determine which students need accommodations on classroom and high-stakes tests. Finally, we discuss an emerging issue: the measurement of effort and motivation that students exhibit during testing in educational settings.

Keywords

testing accommodationslearning disabilitieseducational assessmentspecial educationdisproportionality
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis , pp. 485 - 497
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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