Discussion board 1.2 - Essay Example

Discussion board 2 Though formalized assessments are standardized tests as they are thorough in the sense that, they have being tested in the field, passed through a meticulous research design process and have an appreciable amount of validity and reliability, but the fact remains that there are times that they are not appropriate to use them in testing an ASD child. It is therefore pertinent to establish the period that it is appropriate to use formalized assessment with an ASD child. Formalized assessment is important when the aim is to test the cognitive ability of a child as this would help to know if this child shows any signs of ASD.

Formalized assessment helps us to know the ability of a child to acquire knowledge vis-a-vis the mental faculty of the child. Thus, Formalized assessment to a certain extent helps us to evaluate the process that a child acquires knowledge through the use of intuition, perception, or reasoning. It helps us to know the extent at which a child shows characteristics of ASD. The fact that formalized assessment tests the cognitive ability of a child means that it is difficult to use it as an assessment tool for an ASD child and this is where the limitations of the use of formalized assessment with an ASD child arises.

Formalized assessment usually requires the child to focus on the task given to them and this is usually impossible, especially with an ASD child as it is difficult for them to pay attention to anything. The implication of this is that children that under eighteen months cannot be part of the formal testing procedure as they would not be able to focus on anything at that age (Gupta, 2004). Formalized assessment also gives these children these tasks within a time frame and this means that the ASD child would have to respond to these tasks within this time limit and this is utterly impossible.

Thus, the results of formal assessment should be used cautiously with an ASD child with respect to their ages and the standard of testing these children should differ from the ones used for other children (Wheeler, 2011) . It would therefore be appropriate to use formalized assessment with the ASD child when it is observed that they are focused and their minds are settled on the tools used in testing them as this would help in improving the validity of the result. The validity of the formal assessment results is also assured by the fact that it was not under aged that was used formal assessment procedure (Wheeler, 2011).

When it is noticed that a child does not have encouraging cognitive abilities, one could identify the adaptive behavior of the child by observing the other skills that the child has in a natural settings. This would also help in determining the other skills that the child does not have. These adaptive behaviors would also help to determine the extent at which the child can stay focused during formal assessments as it would help to determine the kind of formalized testing that should be given to the child.

During assessment process, the children that are to be tested should be in a natural setting as this would help in evaluating them effectively. One would have succeeded in testing the ability of the child to function and be as independent as possible. Similarly, one would also have succeeded in asserting the degree at which the child can easily meet the demands of their culture in terms of their personal and social interaction. References Gupta, V.B. (2004). Autistic spectrum disorders in children.

New York: CRC Press. Wheeler, D. (2011). EXC 622. Assessment and Behavioral Applications in Autism [Power Point Slides].