CASE STUDY Francesca DiMaggio

Psychoeducational Assessment SPED 5240 / EDUC 4450 Fall 2014

NAME: MH
GENDER: Female

Saint Louis, Missouri

DATE OF BIRTH: 6 / 13 / 1998

GRADE: 11

CHRONOLOGICAL AGE: 16-4

Background:
MH is 16.4 years old and presently a junior in high school. MH was not
referred for academic testing; however testing was completed as a training

exercise for a Psychoeducational Assessment course at Webster University.

Formal testing was completed in the areas of social/emotional behavior, adaptive
behavior and academic testing in the area of reading. Informal testing was
completed in the area of reading fluency. This information will only be used as a
tool to assist for training purposes and these test scores will not be considered

valid & cannot be used for educational decision-making, but can be looked at
to determine MHs relative strengths and weaknesses in the areas assessed.
Social Emotional Behavioral Assessment:
Social Emotional Behavioral Assessment was completed using the Behavior Rating
Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). This was a questionnaire completed by
MHs mother. Skills included in this questionnaire are (a) selecting appropriate
goals for a particular task, (b) planning and organizing an approach to problem
solving, (c) initiating a plan, (d) inhibiting (blocking out) distractions, (e) holding a
goal and plan in mind, (f) flexibly trying a new approach when necessary, and (g)
checking to see that the goal is achieved.
According to MHs mother, there were no areas of concern (reflected by T scores of
65 or higher). There were elevated scores in the areas of Initiate (beginning a task,
generating ideas or responses or using problem solving strategies) and Organization
of Materials (leaving things neatly and in a clean fashion). Behaviors noted that
occur often included: doesnt start tasks on her own, is a coach potato, leaves areas
a mess and expects others to clean up, is forgetful and starts things at the last
minute.
Score Summary

Scale
Inhibit
Shift

T
SCORE

Percen
tile

Scale

44
48

47
60

Initiate
Working

T
SCORE

Percent
ile

62
58

89
84

** Note **
T SCORES
greater than
65 are areas
of concern

Emotional
control
Behaviora
l
Regulatio
n Index

44

41

44

43

Memory
Plan/Organize
Organization
of Material

56

80

62

90

Monitor
53
69
Metacognition 61
84
Index
GLOBAL Executive Composite: T SCORE 52, PERCENTILE 69
Adaptive Behavior Assessment:
MHs adaptive behavior was evaluated using the Adaptive Behavior Assessment
System, Second Edition (ABAS-II). The ABAS-II is designed to assess skills needed to
function independently at home, school, work, and community settings. It measures
those facets of social development and adaptive and problem behaviors that define,
influence, or limit an individuals adjustment in a variety of environments. Ms. B,
MHs mother, completed the ABAS-II Parent Form.
The results indicate MHs overall adaptive behavior is developmentally appropriate
for her age. MHs GAC score fell at the 73rd percentile, meaning MH performed equal
to or better than 73% of her same-age peers in the standardization sample.
An area of relative strength for MH is her social skills and communication
(examples: communicates clearly and appropriately, uses appropriate greetings,
discusses current events, has friends, shows sympathy for others, listens when
friends or family need to talk about problems). An area of relative weakness, but not
an area of concern due to her T SCORES, is home living (examples: cleaning up
messes, makes bed, puts clothes away, takes out trash, washes dishes, repairs
household items, cleans areas of house).
Specific Raw Scores from ABAS-II for MH
Skill Areas

Raw Scores

Communication

72

Community Use

65

Functional
academics
Home Living

68

Health and Safety

63

Leisure

62

Self-Care

72

Self-Direction

66

45

**** Note ****

Scores lower
than 40 are of
concern

Social

69

Formal Academic Testing:

MH was administered the TORC-4 (Test of Reading Comprehension Fourth Edition),
to assess her reading comprehension and reading proficiency skills during one
testing session.
MHs performance on the subtests of the TORC-4:
1. Relational vocabulary involved MH reading three words that were related and
then choosing two from a list of four to relate to the original three. On this
subtest, MH had a scaled score of 10, which placed her in the 50 th percentile,
which is average.
2. Sentence completion required MH to read a sentence that was missing two
words and chose from a word pair that best completes each sentence. On this
subtest, MH had a scaled score of 10, which placed her in the 50 th percentile,
which is also in the average range.
3. Paragraph construction required MH to read a list of sentences not in order
and rearranged them to make sense. On this subtest, MH had a scaled score
of 9; this placed MH in the 37th percentile which is also in the average range.
4. Test comprehension required MH to read a short story and then answer five
comprehensions regarding that passage. MH had a scaled score of 5 on this
subtest, which is in the 5th percentile and is in the poor performance range.
5. Contextual Fluency was the final subtest that tested MHs speed at which she
can recognize individual words in a series of passages. This subtest is also
timed at 3 minutes. On this subtest, MH had a scaled score of 12. This placed
her in the 75th percentile, in the average range.
Overall MH scored in the average range in all subtests, except test comprehension,
as well as her Reading Comprehension Index with an average score of 94.
Table includes subtests raw score, age equivalent, grade equivalent, percentile rank, scaled score and descriptive
term.
Subtest

Raw Score

Relational
Vocab

31

Age
Equivalent
16-0

Grade
Equivalent
10.2

Percentile
Rank
50

Scaled Score
10

Descriptive
Term
Average

Sentence
Compl
Paragraph
Constr
Test Compre
Contextual Fl

34

16-0

10.4

50

10

Average

30

11-3

5.3

37

Average

16
193

8-3
17-9

2.4
12.9

5
75

5
12

Poor
Average

Reading Comprehension Index 94 Average Range

Informal Reading Assessment CBM completed on oral reading fluency.
MH was given 4- 8th grade reading passages found on EasyCBM.com. She was
instructed to read aloud for 1 min and the words read correctly were recorded. All
passages were given at one time. If administered to a student for progress
monitoring, the passages would be given over time and a baseline would be
created. For this example, the baseline was determined from the first passage that
was read. A goal was determined after 7 weeks of monitoring by increasing the
baseline by two words per week. Baseline 201, Goal 215
Here are the results from the passages given:
Passage
#
1
2
3
4

Words
Read
202
187
214
209

Number of
Words read
Errors
correctly
1
201
0
187
0
214
0
209
th
*For an 8 grader, the WRC is 171 WPM. (http://www.readingrockets.org/article/fluency-norms-chart)
There are no concerns with MHs oral reading fluency based on her performance on
the oral reading CBMs. There were no CBMs provided for the 11 th grade, but MHs
performance on 8th grade materials showed that she is above average for the norm
of 171 WRC.
Summary of Data:
After gaining data in the areas of social/emotional, behavioral, academic and
informal academic data, MHs performance across all areas was in the average
range, except for the comprehension subtest on the TORC-4. A more accurate
picture of MHs academic abilities could be gained through observations and
teacher reports as well as including the formal testing that was completed. The
information gathered in this report is simply a basic predictor of MHs
behavioral/academic performance and was completed for training purposes for the
course, Psychoeducational Assessment. Looking at the data collected, there are no
areas of concern in the areas assessed other than reading comprehension; however
I believe her abilities are higher than predicted due to her academic performance
and current grades in school.