What is eligibility assessment? Give an example of the steps you would take in making eligibility determinations for young children who may be eligible for early intervention or early childhood special education.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Eligibility assessment is used to determine if a child meets the established criteria to be eligible for early intervention or early childhood special education services and is conducted prior to entry into a program. The steps needed to determine if a child is eligible for services include: first, determining if a child's skills are significantly different from other children's skills within a typical range. If, for example, you are assessing a 3-year-old’s ability to bounce or throw a ball, you would check to see if the child's performance falls significantly below other 3-year-old children's performance bouncing and throwing a ball; a second way that eligibility is determined is through a team’s review of health records, observations of the child's behavior in natural settings, and interviews with children and their families. For example, if a pediatrician notes and/or documents a child’s behaviors/skills as below the recommended developmental guidelines for all 3-year-olds and family members also note fewer skills sets for a child, then it can be assumed that the 3-year-old’s development is below the performance/developmental level of other similarly aged children. In this case, eligibility can then be reasonably assumed. The DEC also recommends "clinical reasoning" to make eligibility decisions. Clinical reasoning is considered an "informed opinion or evaluation made by an institution, and/or practitioners experiences." Thus, a practitioner’s work with a child during an eligibility screening may indicate eligibility.
Learning Objective: 5-4: Differentiate between assessment for determining eligibility and assessment for individual program planning and implementation in early childhood special education.