Running head: CUMULATING 1

Cumulating Project Paper

Sarah R. Stratton

Kent State University

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Cumulating Project Paper

In general, the curriculum-based assessment tool that I used to get critical,

developmental information from the target child I assessed did not provide enough comprehensive

material to assist in intervention planning. The curriculum-based assessment tool I used was GOLD,

widely known as the Creative Curriculum (Berke, Heroman, Tabors, Bickart, & Burts (2010). Even

though GOLD can be used with children younger than pre-kindergarten, I felt that the questions in

the assessment would be easier and better used to assess older children with and without

developmental disabilities. As a result, it was a hard assessment to score and as a result, it was hard

to see where the target child was at developmentally. The GOLD curriculum is scored comparing

four different periods of time. I only assessed the target child using GOLD at one period of time, so

evidently, I had nothing to compare to. Nevertheless, I found information regarding the child’s

development more from his Individualized Family Service Plan or IFSP. I was able to get many

current, vital materials from that document alone.

Within the Response to Intervention (RtI) model, there are three tiers teachers and

interventionists look at to see where the child is at developmentally. Tier one is for the general

population of same age children, which includes typically developing children. Tier two is more for

children needing some extra help with the curriculum. These children usually are pulled out into

small group interventions with either an assistant teacher, or a more specialized teacher depending

on the subject or material covered. For example, a Reading Specialist has the authority to pull out or

work alongside the lead teacher within small group activities that are more focused on helping those

children in tier two “catch up” to the children in tier one. Tier three is a more focused, one-on-one

intervention for children who need individualized attention given and have specific intervention

goals.
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The target child that I worked with I believe would be in the tier three category. However, the

RtI model is based off a “pyramid”, going from tier one to tier three, with tier three at the top.

Therefore, his tier one needs will be addressed first. The target child (we shall call him “Z”) clearly

has some developmental milestones that are considered relative to his same age peers. Z has all the

skills I would expect of a child at his age around developing positive social-emotional relationships

(e.g. engaging and relating to family members). For example, Z is securely attached to his mother

and is open to interactions with new, unfamiliar people. He also seeks out his mother and (when

comfortable) seeks out other adults for comfort, play, and to get his needs met.

Again, Z shows age expected skills, however, he continues to show some functioning that might

be considered or described developmentally with a child slightly younger than his current age

regarding his gross motor movements. Even though Z has greatly improved in this area, he is still

needing some support with balance. Evidently, his gross motor development is “stalled” yet is not

missing. In the past, Z was not able to walk unless he used a push toy and could stand for a few

seconds without support. However, now, he is able to walk consistently, yet sometimes Z stumbles

and his gait seems to be unbalanced. On one hand, Z has made tremendous progress in his gross

motor development and continues to make progress. On the other hand, he still needs support with

walking independently with balance (a tier two need) in order to get what he wants to play with or

any desired object (family outcome number 1).

Relative to his same age peers, Z shows many age-expected skills but continues to show some

functioning that might be considered or described that of a slightly younger child regarding his

ability to communicate his wants and needs. Z’s tier three needs are his communication and specific

challenging behaviors, which could be assessed as barriers to his already made progress. There are

some functional skills that seem to be missing. For example, he currently uses single syllables and

does not consistently imitate new sounds or words (family outcome number 2). It would be ideal for
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Z to use gestures, sounds, or words to get his needs met throughout the day. Since Z is not yet able

to express himself verbally to his caregivers, he sometimes hits as a way to get attention or a way to

communicate. I believe the challenging behavior and his communication go hand in hand. Once we

help Z to communicate better to get his wants and needs met, the hitting should decrease over

time.

Generally, to best support Z in his different levels of needs, I would work with mom on

Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching (PMT) strategies to help his communication, while also working on his

gross motor development to help his balance with walking. From what I got from his IFSP, Z is very

motivated to move. I would suggest to mom to have him practice walking and working on his

balance. I would suggest specifically since he loves bath time, to use that as an incentive to practice

walking to the bathroom. I would also suggest putting a desired object out of reach (environmental

arrangement) as motivation for him to practice as well. I would suggest to mom to put the desired

object far away enough for him to have to walk to get to it. To help Z learn to speak, a good way for

him to do that is to learn how to imitate new words and sounds. I would suggest to mom to start to

play turn-taking games with Z for the back and forth reciprocity to allow opportunity for him to

intentionally communicate.

Another strategy I could give to mom is to pair words with signs during turn-taking games or

other routines such as meal time. Since he sometimes gestures to get his needs met, I would suggest

to mom to label everything that he points to, while using picture cues of different items such as

milk, juice, cookie, etc. I would also suggest to mom to wait 5 seconds (time delay) to allow time for

Z to respond. What might also work, is to talk to mom about using the ABC sequence of behavior.

For example, prompting could be the antecedent “A” (e.g. “what do you want?”) and then to wait 5

seconds for Z to respond (the child’s behavior, “B”). If Z responds gesturally by pointing to a desired

object, then the mom should give him that object and praise him for communicating (the
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consequence, “C”). For when Z starts to hit, I would suggest to mom to always immediately redirect

his behavior with modeling “nice hands” consistently. I would also suggest to mom after she

redirects his behavior to immediately ask an open-ended question (prompting) such as “what do

you want?” She can also ask yes/no questions with pairing what she says with a picture cue such as

“Do you want a cookie?” while pointing to the cookie (prompting and labeling), especially if Z does

not respond.

Despite the unawareness I had with how to score the GOLD, I feel that I gave Z’s mom a lot of

good intervention strategies to help him with his tier needs. It’s important to be able to assess

where a child is at developmentally. Curriculum-based assessments can be used as a good tool to

help with intervention planning as well as helping to amend or make the IFSP. I truly enjoyed

working with Z and his mom to better assist Z and to work on his developmental, tiered goals. Even

though I had trouble scoring and interpreting the result of the Creative Curriculum, as a future

Developmental Specialist in Early Intervention, I will have the knowledge of other curriculum-based

assessments to utilize in the future to help me create evidence-based intervention plans. I have

learned many things in both my Assessment and Evaluations class as well as the Typical/Atypical

class, with knowledge gained that will stick with me throughout my time working with young

children and their families in the natural environment.

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References

Berke, K., Heroman, C., Tabors, P. O., Bickart, T., & Burts, D. C. (2010). Teaching strategies GOLD

birth through kindergarten assessment toolkit. Bethesda, MD: Teaching Strategies