ASSESSMENTS AVAILABLE
Clinical Observations, Blanche et al, 2012
The clinical observations asses two main areas of proprioceptive function, including behaviour and sensory motor abilities.
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Sensory Integration and Praxis Test, Ayres, 1979
The Sensory Integration and Praxis Tests (SIPT) measure the sensory integration processes that underlie learning and behaviour. By showing you how children organise and respond to sensory input, SIPT helps pinpoint specific organic problems associated with learning disabilities, emotional disorders, and minimal brain dysfunction.
17 Tests Provide a Comprehensive Assessment. The SIPT measures visual, tactile, and kinaesthetic perception as well as motor performance. It is composed of the following 17 brief tests:
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Space Visualisation
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Figure-Ground Perception
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Standing/Walking Balance
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Design Copying
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Postural Praxis
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Bilateral Motor Coordination
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Praxis on Verbal Command
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Constructional Praxis
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Postrotary Nystagmus
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Motor Accuracy
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Sequencing Praxis
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Oral Praxis
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Manual Form Perception
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Kinaesthesia
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Finger Identification
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Graphesthesia
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Localisation of Tactile Stimuli
Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, 6th Edition (VMI) including Sub-Tests
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Internationally respected and backed by decades of research and clinical use, the Beery VMI offers a convenient and economical way to screen for visual-motor deficits that can lead to learning, neuropsychological and behaviour problems. The Beery VMI can be used by psychologists, occupational therapists, learning disability specialists, specialist teachers and other professionals to help:
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Identify individuals who may be encountering difficulties in visual-motor integration
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Make appropriate referrals for needed services
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Test the effectiveness of educational and other interventions
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Conduct research.
The Beery Test of Visual-motor integration is a standardised assessment and requires the ability to copy a series of increasingly difficult geometric shapes. It is the foundation skill to all graphic and handwriting skills. It assesses the ability of the individual to transfer what he/she perceives visually into motor output. It is scored as a standard score.
Clinical Observations of Motor and Postural Skills – 2nd Edition, Wilson et al
COMPS is an individually administered screening tool designed for use by Occupational therapists to identify subtle, developmental motor coordination problems, or dyspraxias in children. It is based on six of the Clinical Observations developed by Dr Jean Ayres to supplement information received from standardized tests. It generates a score to help identify a number of subtle motor coordination problems in children.
The six subtests are:
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Slow Movements: measuring the child’s ability to move the upper extremities slowly and symmetrically
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Rapid Forearm Rotation: assessing the number of forearm rotations accurately completed within 10 seconds assessing Diadochokinesis (cerebellar-vestibular integrity)
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Finger-Nose Touching: with eyes open and closed
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Prone Extension Posture: measuring the ability to assume and maintain an arched-back position against gravity with arms and legs extended
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Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (ATNR): measure the presence of the asymmetrical tonic reflex in the quadruped position
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Supine Flexion Posture: assessing the ability to assume and maintain a flexed posture in the supine position.
Clinical Observations of Listening: Assessment Form: Vital Links
The Clinical Observations of Listening enables the practitioner to identify the child’s auditory processing skills in relation to supporting their emotional regulation and engagement.
The Test of Visual-Perceptual Skills, 4th Edition (TVPS-4) – Martin, N 2017
The TVPS-4 is the latest update of the standard comprehensive assessment of visual analysis and processing skills. It can be used by many professionals, including occupational therapists, learning specialists, optometrists, and school psychologists.
The TVPS-4 utilizes black-and-white line drawings, bound in a convenient easel-style booklet. The items are still presented in a multiple-choice format, requiring only minimal verbal or motor (pointing) responses. This format is ideal for use with individuals who have impairments in motor, speech, neurological, or cognitive functions.
Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOT-2)
The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOT-2), is an individually administered test that uses engaging, goal-directed activities to measure a wide array of motor skills in individuals ages 4 through 21. The BOT-2 uses a subtest and composite structure that highlights motor performance in the broad functional areas of stability, mobility, strength, coordination, and object manipulation. This report will discuss four motor-area composites, each comprising two of the eight BOT-2 subtests, and a Total Motor Composite, which comprises the four composites and provides the most reliable measure of overall motor proficiency.
Sensory Profile 2, Dunn 2014
The Sensory Profile™ 2 assessments provide you with standardised tools to help evaluate a child’, adolescent and adults sensory processing patterns in the context of home, school and community-based activities.
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This significantly revised questionnaire evaluates a child’s unique sensory processing patterns from a position of strengths, providing deeper insight to help you customise the next steps of intervention. The forms are completed by caregivers and teachers, who are in the strongest position to observe the child’s response to sensory interactions that occur throughout the day.
The Sensory Profile 2 helps to:
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Identify and document how sensory processing may be contributing to or interfering with a persons participation at home, school, and the community
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Contribute valuable information to a comprehensive assessment of the persons sensory strengths and challenges in context
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Develop effective treatment plans, interventions, and everyday remediation strategies.
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Each form includes some combination of Sensory System, Behavioural, and Sensory Pattern scores:
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Sensory System scores: Auditory, Visual, Touch, Movement, Body Position, Oral.
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Behaviour scores: Conduct, Social-Emotional, Attentional.
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Sensory Pattern scores: Seeking, Avoiding, Sensitivity, Registration.
Adult and Adolescent Sensory History, Spiral Foundation
The culmination of years of research and work, the Adult/Adolescent Sensory History is designed as a self-report assessment of sensory and motor behaviours commonly observed in individuals with difficulties processing and integrating sensory information. Based on the conceptual model of sensory processing and sensory integration proposed by Dr.Jean Ayres, this measure is designed to identify difficulties in five key areas of functioning: Sensory Discrimination, Sensory Modulation, Postural-Ocular Skills, Praxis, and Social-Emotional Functioning. This assessment starts at the age of 13 years, so therefore it was used to gain additional information in relation to areas of concern.
Sensory Processing measure second edition
The SPM-2 is the Sensory Processing Measure, Second Edition, authored by L. Diane Parham, Cheryl L. Ecker, Heather Kuhaneck, Diana A. Henry, and Tara J. Glennon. The SPM-2 is published by WPS.
The SPM-2 is a norm-referenced measure of function in the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, proprioceptive (body awareness), and vestibular (balance and motion) sensory systems, as well as praxis and social participation.
The SPM-2 is a comprehensive assessment instrument with unique forms in each of five age levels: Infant/Toddler, Preschool, Child, Adolescent, and Adult. At each level, forms may be used independently or jointly to provide an overview of a client’s sensory functioning across multiple environments and raters.
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Detailed Assessment of the Speed of Handwriting(DASH), Barnet et al, 2007
TheDetailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting is ideal for providing evidence for Access Arrangements for Key Stage 2 National Curriculum Tests and for General Qualifications. It can also play a role in identifying children with handwriting difficulties and provides relevant information for planning intervention. The assessment includes five subtests, each testing a different aspect of handwriting speed. The subtests examine fine motor and precision skills, the speed of producing well known symbolic material, the ability to alter speed of performance on two tasks with identical content,and free writing competency
The Short Child Occupational Profile (SCOPE) – Bowyer. P et al. 2008
The SCOPE is an occupation-focused assessment that determines how a child’s volition, habituation, skills, and the environment, facilitate or restrict participation. Developed in collaboration with international practitioners, the SCOPE seeks to facilitate a systematic evaluation of most Model of Human Occupation concepts. SCOPE ratings are based on each child’s “individual developmental trajectory” – the capacities a child has the potential to acquire in the future, given the child’s age, impairment, prior life experiences, and environmental context. This approach enables practitioners to capture each child’s strengths as well as challenges using the SCOPE.
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Delis Rating of Executive Functioning (D-REF) – Parent Form
Delis Rating of Executive Functions (D-REF) is a set of rating forms that measures the executive functioning (EXF) in individuals from ages 5 to 18. The D-REF contains three forms: Parent, Teacher, and Self. Each form consists of 36 items. The D-REF forms can be administered digitally using a computer or tablet or paper-pencil format.
Three core indexes and a total composite score are provided via the D-REF online scoring and reporting site that are based on three manifestations of executive control problems:
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Behavioural regulation
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Emotional/social regulation
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Cognitive functioning
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Total index calculated from the three core indexes
Four additional second level index scores are available to identify patterns of clinically relevant symptoms:
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Attention/Working Memory Index
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Activity Level/Impulse Control Index
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Abstract Thinking/Problem Solving Index
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Compliance/Anger Management Index
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The School Function Assessment
The (SFA) is used to measure a student’s performance of functional tasks that support his or her participation in the academic and social aspects of an elementary school program (grades K–6). It was designed to facilitate collaborative program planning for students with a variety of disabling conditions.
The instrument is a judgment-based (questionnaire) assessment that is completed by one or more school professionals who know the student well and have observed his or her typical performance on the school-related tasks and activities being assessed. Items have been written in measurable, behavioural terms that can be used directly in the student’s Individual Educational Plan (IEP).
The SFA is comprised of three parts:
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Part I – Participation: is used to examine the student’s level of participation in six major school activity settings: regular or special education classroom, playground or recess, transportation to and from school, bathroom and toileting activities, transitions to and from class, and mealtime or snack time.
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Part II – Task Supports: is used to examine the supports currently provided to the student when he or she performs school-related functional tasks that are required to participate effectively in an educational program. Two types of task supports are examined separately: assistance (adult help) and adaptations (modifications to the environment or program, such as specialized equipment or adapted materials).
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Part III – Activity Performance: is used to examine the student’s performance of specific school-related functional activities. Each scale includes a comprehensive set of activities that share a common functional demand such as moving around the classroom and the school, using school materials, interacting with others, following school rules, and communicating needs. Each set of activities is used to examine in detail one of the tasks addressed globally in Part II.
The Interoception Assessment Forms, Mahler K, 2019
Interoception Assessment Forms - a set of 10 assessment forms, as well as 18 black and white photo cards used in conjunction with the assessment the book, Interoception: The Eighth Sensory System, describe the clear link between interoception and important skills such as self-awareness, self-regulation, problem-solving, intuition, and many more. In addition, to providing a clear explanation of and strategies for interoception challenges, author Kelly Mahler designed various assessments, included in this workbook, which give professionals and parents a new way to evaluate individuals with ASD and provide targeted strategies to overcome challenges.
Sensory, Arousal State, Attachment and Physiological (SAAP) by Eadaoin Bhreathnach, 2016
Sensory Attachment Intervention is an integrative approach to the treatment of children and adults who have suffered abuse or severe neglect. Negative experiences in the womb, and in early childhood, impact on one’s capacity to cope with stress throughout life. There is a tendency to either: flee and fight, freeze and dissociate, or fluctuate between these stress states, when there is a hint or a reminder of traumatic events. Traumatised children and adults tend to operate in persistent fear mode. They maintain a state of hypervigilance. This impedes the capacity for filtering out “irrelevant” sensory experiences, such as background sights and sounds. There is a tendency to be sensory defensive – as the sensory systems have become sensitised to the possibility of danger.
The questionnaire provides us with information in relation to physiological and attachment behaviours, and it enables us to identify areas of concern to support the child.
THE CHILD ATTACHMENT AND PLAY ASSESSMENT
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The CAPA is a doll play procedure designed to assess children aged 3 – 11 years in terms of attachment strategies, developmental trauma, mentalising and depression. It has been developed for use with children from very troubled backgrounds and assists practitioners in formulating intervention plans most likely to succeed. The CAPA analysis combines Crittenden’s Dynamic Maturational Model of attachment and adaptation (DMM) with Winnicott’s ‘playing and reality’ and ‘potential space’ to assess attachment strategy, mentalising, unresolved loss and trauma together with the DMM modifiers.
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The CAPA uses the established narrative story stems procedure in which the interviewer gives the child the beginning of the story (the stem) and then asks her/him to “tell me and show me what happens next”. There are two sets of stories, one for children aged 3 - 6 years using the established story stem battery and another for 7 – 12 year olds using stories developed for the CAPA.
THE MEANING OF THE CHILD INTERVIEW
The Meaning of the Child Interview (MotC) is a method of understanding the parent-child relationship, though evaluating the way parents think about their child. It makes use of a semi-structured interview in which parents talk about their child, their relationship with their child, and their parenting, which is then carefully analysed using a manualised system.
The Meaning of the Child Interview differs from similar procedures by its focus on the parent-child relationship (rather than some attribute of the parent), as understood by how the parent thinks and talks about their child. For this reason, it is uniquely suited to helping understand what is going in specific parent-child relationships, the potential impact of this on child development, and the kind of of supportive intervention (if any) that might be needed (Grey and Farnfield 2017a).
The Roll Evaluation of Activities of Life (REAL) –Roll and Roll, 2013.
This questionnaire-based assessment offers a useful screening instrument to help you assess children’s ability to care for themselves at home, at school, and in the community. This standardised rating scale provides you with information on the activities of daily living (ADLs) and independent activities of daily living (IADLs) most common among children ages 2:0–18:11.The REAL helps you measure how a child:•Obtains the supplies needed to complete the activity•Is or is not able to maintain a safe body position while performing the activity•Sequences all the steps required•Problem-solves and makes appropriate and safe choices during the activity
We are also excited to show that Claire is the lead for the East of England Lead for developing the Evaluation in Ayres Sensory Integration (EASI)
The purpose of the Evaluation in Ayres Sensory Integration (EASI) is to provide a valid and reliable set of tests for assessing key sensory integration functions which underlie learning, behavior, and participation.
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The EASI measures sensory perception, postural/ocular/bilateral motor integration, praxis, and sensory reactivity, in a manner that minimizes the influences of culture, language comprehension, and prior experience. The EASI tests are designed for children 3-12 years of age and will be made available to appropriately trained professionals, in a low-cost and accessible format.
