Alternate Assessments for Special Education Students - Article Example

The journal conducted some surveys, as well as interviews and the findings, proved that the Southwestern Region of the United States has been tracking modifications in their programs as well as assessment focus. States in the Southwestern Region are now changing from functional contents to academic contents (Sato, 2008). The journal focuses on the year 2007 and how the five states of the Southwestern region of the United States institutes these alternative programs. The journal also finds that, due to the wide range of student physical disabilities and student cognitive behaviors, a one-size alternative assessment will not fit everybody.

In examining the challenges of planning and implementing alternate assessments across these five states, the researchers developed six study queries. These queries include the challenges that are encountered during the execution of fresh policies and practices. The second query was how the alternate assessments in the five states looked liked before the research. The researchers explored the different training methods that were offered to educators of alternate assessments. They also examined how the collected results are applied at the student, school, and district as well as at the state level.

The researchers also examined to what level the state alternate assessments captured similar skills as states examinations specified for the general student populace. Finally, they examined the technical issues that states were encountering in developing plus implementing valid and reliable alternate assessments (Sato, 2008). I personally feel that the research was well planned. This is because alternate assessments for learners with cognitive disabilities are fairly new in many states, but the research takes an approach that is different from other programs.

Other researches do not include every student with different disabilities in their programs, but the research carried out by the Regional Educational Inc. includes every student with disabilities.