Assessment Tools

The Assessment of Functional Living Skills (AFLS)

 Created by James W. Partington, PH.D., BCBA-D and Michael M. Mueller, PH.D., BCBA-D
 There is a warning presented when you first open the book up that warns the assessor that not
all individuals will be able to complete every part of the assessment and therefore each
assessment should be done with consideration for safety. This assessment should be closely
supervised.
 The AFLS is used to assess the skills required for independence.
 The AFLS is broken down into multiple documents, The “AFLS Guide” and six assessment
modules: Basic Living Skills, Home Skills, Community Participation Skills, School Skills, Vocational
Skills, and Independent Living Skills.
 The AFLS Guide has seven chapters: The Importance of Functional Skills, Considerations in the
development of AFLS, The AFLS- An Overview, Using AFLS to Assess Functional Skills, Selecting
Functional Skills to Teach, Teaching During Daily Activities, Task Analysis.
 Each module addresses eight skill areas to assess the functional skills throughout a learner’s
lifetime in various situations.
 A set of companion teaching manuals contain task analysis, teaching strategies, and prompting
techniques.
 Every AFLS module is designed to give learners the very best opportunities to learn how to do
tasks for themselves.

The AFLS School Skills

 The AFLS School Skills is designed to help evaluate the learner’s ability to be an active
participant in the education setting.
 There are eight skills covered in this module: Classroom Mechanics, Meals at School, Routines
and Expectations, Social Skills, Technology, Common Knowledge, Core Academics, and Applied
Academics.
 The assessment covers all levels of education.
 Takes individual levels into considerations
 Covers a wide range of educational environments.
 The learner’s knowledge about a skill and their ability to learn that skill are evaluated.

A. Classroom Mechanics
The learner must be able to use the wide range of objects found in educational settings
and understand how the materials are organized, stored, and maintained. Students
need to be able to use pencils, markers, glue, paper clips, tape, etc.. Learning these skills
will help the student be independent in the classroom.

B. Routines and Expectations

The learner’s ability to follow school rules, procedures and expectations. The student
mist be able to describe and understand the routines and the expectations associated
with them. The student must learn many skills both basic and more advanced. Basic
skills include: raising hand, standing in line, hanging backpack up in the proper place.
 More advanced skills include: Organizing materials, planning calendars, describing
schedules.

C. Meals at School
This section addresses the way students eat and drink during the school day. This
includes holding utensils, opening wrappers and containers, and basic food handling
skills. Manners are a huge part in social success. Students must be able to respect others
space and food, ask before sitting with others, and clean up after they are finished
eating.

D. Social Skills
The ability to interact with peers in a socially acceptable manner. Social interactions
include: Greeting others, taking turns, initiating and maintain conversation, invited
others to join in on an activity. More advanced social skills include; awareness of group
similarities and differences, social and cultural diversity, and knowledge about friends.

E. Technology
Using current technology available in the educational setting. The individual must be
able to operate the device, access the internet for both social and academic purposes,
use common word processors, and understand storage and data.

F. Common Knowledge
The learner’s general repertoire and knowledge of events. These skills are the
foundation for success in the social and academic environments. Mastering these skills
are essential in communicating with peers and adults.

G. Core Academics
All schools focus on educating students academically. Having a basic understanding in
the basic subject areas including reading, math, and writing, will open the door for
students to participate in more social activities. Every student is different and not all will
be able to meet all the requirements of general education, but every student must work
toward academic goals for their ability level.

H. Applied Academics
After a student has mastered core academics, they can begin working on applied
academics to further achieve independent skills. For example, math skills can be applied
when using money and reading skills can be applied when reading directions.
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP)

 Based off of B.F. Skinner’s “Verbal Behavior” (1957).

 Written by Mark L. Sundberg, PH. D
 Uses the methodology of Applied Behavioral Analysis (Skinner).
 There are five components to the VB-MAPP
o VB-MAPP Milestones Assessment
 Provides a sample of children's verbal skills and related skills.
 170 milestones in language and learning
 3 developmental levels (0-18 months) (18-30 months) (30-48 months)
 Subtest: Echoic Skills Assessment (EESA)
 Skills assessed: mand, tact, echoic, intraverbal, listener, motor imitation,
independent play, social and social play, visual perceptual and matching-to-
sample, linguistic structure, group and classroom skills, and early academics.
o VB-Mapp Barriers Assessment
 Provides an assessment of common learning and acquisition and language
barriers faced by children with developmental disabilities.
 24 common areas: behavior problems, instructional control, impaired mands,
impaired tacts, impaired echoic, impaired imitation, impaired visual perception
and matching-to-sample, impaired listener skills, impaired intraverbal, impaired
social skills, prompt dependency scrolling, impaired scanning, impaired
conditional discriminations, failure to generalize, weak motivators, response
requirement weakens the motivators, reinforcer dependency, self-stimulation,
impaired articulation, obsessive-compulsive behavior, hyperactive behavior,
failure to make eye contact, and sensory defensiveness
 Identifying barriers will help develop intervention strategies.
o VB-MAPP Transition Assessment
 18 assessment areas.
 Identifies whether a child is making meaningful progress and has acquired the
skills to learn in a less restrictive environment.
 Measurable assessment used to make IEP decisions.
 Uses scores from other parts of the VB-MAPP
o VB-MAPP Task Analysis and Skills Tracking
 Serves as a more complete and ongoing learning and language curriculum guide.
 900 skills presented
 16 areas of VB-MAPP covered
 Skills identified in task analysis are not specific enough to identify as IEP goals,
but help teachers and parents create activities to facilitate generalization,
maintenance, spontaneity, retention, expansion, and functional use of skills.
o VB-MAPP Placement and IEP Goals.
 Provides specific directions for each milestone and suggestions for the IEP.
 Helps with placement of a child and interventions needed.
 The VB-MAPP is used to identify the child’s baseline level and compares it to typically
developing peers.
 Used to determine the basic elements of the IEP.
 Provides information about what skills need to be focused on, what level of the skill should the
intervention begin, barriers, types of augmentative communication, specific teaching strategies,
and what educational setting is best.
 Assessors need to have a broad background of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior.
 The term verbal behavior is used instead of speech.
 Verbal behavior includes sign language, PECS, written language, etc.
 Behaviors differ between the speaker and the listener
 Form and function of language.
 Mand: asking for reinforcers that you want.
 Tact: naming or identifying objects, actions, events, etc.
 Intraverbal: answering questions or having conversations where your words are controlled by
other words.
 Listener: following instructions or complying with the mands of others.
 Echoic: Repeating what is heard.
 Imitation: copying someone's motor movements.
 Textual: reading written words.
 Copying-a-text: writing a word somebody else wrote.
 Transcription: Spelling words spoken to you.
 Most if the materials needed for testing can be found in the classroom.
 A scoring guide is available for the verbal behavior milestones assessment.
Brigance Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills II : Standardized

 The Brigance special education system has seven components

o Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills II (CIBS II)
o CIBS II Standardized
o Inventory of Early Development II (IED II)
o IED II Standardized
o Transition Skills Inventory (TSI)
o Brigance Online Management System
o CA101 (online training)
 34 assessments in readiness.
 11 assessments in first-sixth grade.
 Demonstrates student levels in real-life conditions.
 Produces grade equivalents, age equivalents, percentiles, and quotients in oral expression,
listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skills, reading comprehension, math
calculation, and math problem solving.