The Transdisciplinary Play-Based Assessment (TPBA)

Easy reference:
1. Introduction 2. Cognitive Skills 3. Social Emotional Development 4. Communication and Language 5. SensoriMotor Development Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 4

Introduction
The TPBA is a natural, functional approach to assessment. It allows cross disciplinary analysis of developmental level, learning style, interaction patterns, and other relevant behaviors. Whether the child is testable on standardized testing or not, this assessment will reveal accurate developmental levels of function over a multitude of areas through a team approach. The results can not only formulated into objectives for the child, but will also elucidate intervention strategies for the teams that work with the child. The child centered approach leads to child centered approaches to intervention. Writing functional objectives becomes an easier task. The families are involved from step 1 and are actively involved in the program planning process and plans could be integrated for all, clinic, home and school. The TPBA model is developmental, transdisciplinary, holistic and dynamic. Flexibility in the structure allows content, participants, and sequences of events to be changed, depending on the needs of the individual child being evaluated. The model examines the childs developmental skills, and equally important, underlying developmental processes, learning style, and interaction patterns regardless of the actual diagnosis. It is implemented by a team consisting of the parents, occupational therapist, physical therapist and speech language pathologist, and also includes a typical peer whenever applicable. The model is much less stressful for the child and results in meaningful information. Though this is not a standardized tool with stanine and percentage scores, the child is compared with normal development, accepted by the different professional bodies (physical, occupational, and speech language
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therapy) as what constitutes typical development within age ranges. The process can be used with all children who are developmentally (not chronologically) functioning between infancy and 6 years of age. The play session is video taped for further analysis, after the child and family has returned home after the initial assessment. The validity of the TPBA was measured by comparing outcomes of play based assessment to traditional standardized and norm referenced testing for children with and without disabilities. The TPBA was found to be accurate as traditional testing in identifying and determining whether a child was eligible for special services. Reliability is a critical component of an assessment procedure. It ensures that the procedure provides stable results across time and raters. The TPBA was well supported in both test retest and interrater conditions. In one study, a group of children was assessed with TPBA at two separate points in time (up to 6 weeks apart). At both times the TPBA profiles for the children revealed similar outcomes. This result indicates that the TPBA can be used to assess the underlying developmental competencies of young children, despite differences in their play performance and specific setting during the assessments. Play is vital to and reflective of the childs development. Cognitive understanding, emotional development, social skills, language usage, and physical and motor development are influenced by a childs play experiences. Delays, defects, or deviations in development can also be reflected in a childs play. Use of a stimulating environment and facilitative techniques enable a transdisciplinary team to conduct a play-based assessment that can adapt to disabling conditions, is process-oriented, takes into consideration ecological and interactive variables and provides relevant information for intervention. Cognitive Skills to be reported on when applicable: 1. Categories of play exploratory, relational, constructive, dramatic, games with rules, rough and tumble (Piaget 1962; Rubin 1984; Rubin et al. 1983; Smilansky 1968) 2. Attention Span watching for fluctuations across different stimuli, in different types of play; the amount of time the child spends engaged in the various categories of play; interests that may effect attention; attraction of particular characteristics of play that affect attention.

3. Locus of control Need of external reinforcement; control of flow; degree of redirection, support and reinforcement needed; also type of reinforcement needed relational, object related etc.; distractibility. 4. Early object use Importance of objects; exploratory towards characteristics of objects; combining schemes in relational play; understanding of the relation between actions and resulting consequences in the play in which the child engages. Types of schemes are also important simple schemas vs. complex, more adaptive schemes; childs ability to generalize schemes appropriately across multiple objects; linking schemes to meaningful sequences; spontaneity of schemes vs, the need for modeling and / or prompting. 5. Symbolic and Representational Play development of representational thought; ability to focus pretend play on other people and objects; ability to use non realistic objects in pretend play; use of imaginary objects; ability to create imaginary characters in play; understanding social roles of characters; directing of interaction between 3 different characters (dolls); understanding of one character with different roles (role intersection); expression of different emotions. 6. Imitation physical and / or vocal; imitation of actions of others; sounds and gestures; capacity to mentally represent an act that is not perceptually present, levels of imitation; timing of imitation; turn taking. 7. Problem-solving approaches means end and cause-and-effect; trial and error; advance planning 8. Discrimination / Classification sensations; differential awareness of self and others; social discrimination; matching; three dimensional block designs. 9. One-to-one correspondence labeling and classifying objects; ability to compare, measure, and use symbols; ability to make basic concept judgments such as one/many, more/less; counting rotely vs rationally; understanding weight, length, time and money 10. Sequencing ability ordering objects / concepts; linking of schemes, order events, ordering od ifeas in conversation, stories, and dramatic play. 11. Drawing Ability scribbling vs. drawing; use of lines and shapes; representation through drawing; representation of people and objects.
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Social-Emotional Development to be reported on when applicable: 1. Temperament activity level, adaptability, and reactivity 2. Mastery motivation The degree of persistence, approach to problemsolving, and effectiveness of efforts in each developmental area can be determined. (Scarr, Yarrow, Klein, Lomanoco, and Morgan) maintained that mastery motivation may be as predictive of later success as standardized tests, and may be more predictive. Mastery motivation is inextricably intertwined with cognitive development. 3. Social interactions with the parent responsiveness to social stimuli, initiation of social contact, childs modification of adult behavior, adults modification of childs behavior. 4. Social interactions with the facilitator 5. Social interactions with peers 6. Dramatic play in relation to emotional development structure of play, content of play, awareness of self and others 7. Humor and social conventions sense of humor, awareness of social conventions. Observation of communication and language development: 1. Modalities of communication quantity of communication acts, primary methods, supplemental forms, frequency 2. Pragmatics communicative intent, meaning, functions, discourse, echolalia. 3. Phonology: sound production patterns phonemes or speech sounds, phonological processes or errors, intelligibility level. 4. Semantic and syntactic understanding knowledge level, semantic relations, morphological markers, mean length of utterance, comprehension. 5. Oral motor development
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6. Observations related to other areas hearing, voice quality, cognitive development, social emotional development, sensorimotor development Observation of Sensorimotor Development 1. General appearance of movement - physical appearance, motor activity 2. Muscle performance muscle tone, strength, endurance 3. Reactivity to sensory input different sensory stimuli 4. Stationary positions used for play prone, supine, sitting, hands and knees, standing, 5. Mobility in play movements in prone and supine, movements in sitting, movements in standing 6. Other developmental achievements jumping, climbing, ball skills (throwing, catching, kicking) 7. Prehension and manipulation muscle tone and strength, head and trunk control, reaching skills, grasping skills, releasing skills, bilateral development, manipulative prehension
8. Motor planning body awareness, spatial awareness, sequencing