Someone Else Could Repeat Diagnostic Assessments

“At its core, a diagnostic assessment is a detailed
investigation of children’s strengths and skill gaps that permits
targeted intervention.” (Howard, V. F., & Aiken, E., 2015, p. 282).
Informal diagnostics assessments can and should be developed by
professionals who work with young children. This allows them to observe
how and what the child is learning so they can make informed decisions
about how to help the child. One way to do this is by developing a
learning activity that allows you to determine where the child is
struggling with a particular skill. “Diagnostic assessments fall into
two types: informal or teacher developed, and formal standardized
instruments, which are professionally developed and commercially
available.” (Howard, V. F., & Aiken, E., 2015, p. 282) For this
discussion we will be focusing on the informal, or teacher developed,
diagnostic assessments.

To begin, choose a child from Developmental Checklists Birth to Five.
This must be a different child than the one you chose for your Week 3
assignment. Once you have chosen a child, you will need to identify an
area of need for the child based on the checklist. Then, include the
following as your initial discussion post:

• Based on your own observation, identify the child’s perceived area of need based on the checklist.
• Describe an activity you would do with the child based on the
  child’s area of need. Include enough detail so that someone else could
  repeat the activity on their own. (e.g., If you use the checklist for
  12- to 24-month-olds and it states that they cannot sort shapes or
  colors, your activity would contain elements such as naming colors and
  shapes, identifying colors and shapes, and finding examples of shapes.
  From completing these activities, you would be able to determine where
  the child’s struggles are with sorting shapes and colors).
• Explain how using this activity would allow you to be able to
  determine the child’s specific struggles in this area of need. Be
  specific.
• Discuss how you used your knowledge of developmental milestones to
  assist you in creating this informal diagnostic assessment activity.