that time of year
'Tis the season for IEPs. And Ellis is getting ready to transition to kindergarten next year.
No, that is not my baby going to kindergarten!!
Part of the process is evaluations. I was pleased about many aspects of the evaluation results, especially his reading readiness. I was also pleased to read that one evaluator noted that "one should not assume that just because Ellis doesn't respond doesn't mean that he doesn't know." It shows me that the people at E's school really understand him. E sometimes takes a while to process things, and doesn't always respond the way and the timing that you'd like. I just love our school.
One thing that does bother me about the IEP process, though, is that there are many tests by which to evaluate and score Ellis's spoken English language progress, but there are no tests to evaluate his ASL progress. I want to know how he's doing! I can't evaluate his ASL. I'm not a native signer, and probably only sign two steps ahead of him. It's not the school's fault that this kind of test isn't included, but it is a fundamental flaw in the system that I think needs addressing!! So i'll probably be talking to some people this week.
Comments
That's interesting - I didn't know that PSD didn't include ASL language assessment. That's very important, especially in a bilingual school.
I believe both Kendall and MSD do. One is the MacArthur Communicative Inventory (see here: http://www.signlang-assessment.info/eng/ASL-CDI-eng/asl-cdi-eng.html ).
There is also "The Toolkit" by Martha French which targets ASL development. We had used that and talked about that in one of my courses last semester. Perhaps that is something you could bring up when you meet with them? If I remember right, it provides evaluation criteria from infancy to 13 years old.
I was given a copy of it last semester, and I think it can be obtained from The Clerc Center. I pasted the info below:
The Toolkit: Apendices for Starting with Assessment A Developmental Approach to Deaf Children's Literacy
Available through: Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, Product Inquiries, KDES PAS-6, 800 Florida Ave., N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002-3695, (800) 526-9105 (TTY/V), 202-651-5340 (TTY/V), or 202-651-5708 (FAX), Web: http://clerccenter@gallaudet.edu; Email: products.clerccenter@gallaudet.edu
The Toolkit includes the appendices to Starting With Assessment: A Developmental Approach to Deaf Children's Literacy, by Martha M. French. Starting With Assessment describes a model for assessing deaf children's literacy development in the classroom. Appendix B includes the Kendall Conversational Proficency Levels, or "P-Levels". The P-Levels scale was developed for teachers to assess the communicative competency of their deaf students.
Hope that helps.
Can't believe Ellis is going into Kindergarten. I've been lurking around your blog for longer then I thought I guess.
Thanks for this information! I will probably look into these resources for myself. It will be helpful for me to target where *I* can improve so that I can stay a step ahead of Ellis. Ha! :)
It's amazing how much kids manage to stay ahead of us, huh? :)
I consider myself fairly fluent in ASL (I'm a hearing ASL/English bilingual, getting my MA at Gallaudet) but kids are very different from adults, and almost require a slightly different set of skills. And then, of course, there is the kid vocabulary. Like all of the Thomas trains. And different types of construction trucks.
I take care of a Deaf 2 year old and his Deaf 9 month old brother three times a week, and the rest of the week I have classes. It gets interesting. The new obsession for the oldest one is trains - and I can't for the life of me keep the Thomas trains straight. I know Thomas, Henry, and James. That's about it.
Fortunately, he haven't gotten into dinosaurs yet. That'll be interesting... Pterodactyls anyone?
Even though I should have known, it was interesting to read of ASL literacy evaluations at this young age. It wasn't too long ago that ASL was considered a ...secondary language unimportant to school and progress and not worthy of evaluation for itself.
Even though it has been the language of instruction in deaf colleges since 1864. Even though students who were oral or mainstreamed didn't use it growing up, they did so in Gallaudet, NTID and CSUN. Amazing that it took us this long to recognize ASL as valuable in itself and worthy of systematic development and evaluation.
Just musing and marveling at this. And shaking my head.
Diana, I'm feeling sheepish this morning. They will be doing ASL evals. I'm glad I asked.
Definitely get an ASL eval! My friend is an ASL Specialist at PSD (Melissa Draganac-Hawk) so I'm surprised that an ASL eval is not automatically given to all kids... Keep us posted on the ASL eval! =)
i talked to people this morning. she's actually doing that eval next week. i didn't know that at first. :)
Wow! Just in time.
My 4 yrs old in the SEE/TC program has been defensive since they are not "trained" to assess the area they haven't been properly trained. Can you give me the name of contact that I would bring up in the next round of IEP meeting?
They have been reluctant to incorporate ASL in their program without my doubt. Any suggestions for my 4 years old would be appreciated. They are trying to get rid of him in their preschool/pre-K program because he has met all goals without ASL option. Of course, I did not sign the agreement two weeks ago. How sad.
Thanks for your important blog as my son needs help,
Frustrated parent
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