Re-Conceptualizing Developmental Areas of Assessment for Screening, Eligibility Determination and Program Planning in Early Intervention 
Pages 218-229
Bonnie Keilty, Patricia M. Blasco and Serra Acar

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6000/2292-2598.2015.03.04.8

Published: 07 January 2016

Abstract: Contemporary recommended practices in early childhood assessment strive to gain a holistic picture of child learning and development to inform screening, eligibility, and program planning decisions. These practices have traditionally focused on competencies reflected in developmental domains with limited attention to the approaches-to-learning used to acquire those competencies. In this article, we call for the examination of early childhood constructs that impact a child’s ability to learn and develop, such as executive function (EF), mastery motivation, self-regulation and self-determination, specifically in the infant-toddler period. With EF defined as a wide range of central control processes in the brain that link and categorize information that is discernible in cognitive, motor, and behavioral responses [1], we propose a model of EF as the core construct that drives and unites these learning processes and describe how the model can be applied to Part C early intervention screening, assessment, eligibility determination, and program planning, as well as identify future directions in research and personnel preparation.

The Observation Scale for Autism (OSA): A New Screening Method to Detect Autism Spectrum Disorder before Age Three Years 
Pages 230-237
Nils Haglund, SvenOlof Dahlgren, Karin Källén, Peik Gustafsson and Maria Råstam

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6000/2292-2598.2015.03.04.9

Published: 07 January 2016

Abstract: Background:There is an increasing body of evidence that early interventions for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) promote a positive development of social interaction. Thus, tools for early detection of ASD are warranted.

Aim: Development of, and deciding cut-off-levels for, a new screening tool for ASD, the Observation Scale for Autism (OSA). The OSA was designed to be used at the free health check-up at 30 months, offered to all children in Sweden.

Method: The OSA consists of 12 observations and takes less than 10 minutes to use. The performance of the test was investigated by assessing 37 children previously diagnosed ASD, 23 with Down Syndrome (DS) and 26 typically developing children (TD).

Results:Children diagnosed with ASD showed statistically significant higher scores in all 12 items compared to TD children, and significantly higher in 10 items compared to the children with DS. Most of the observations in OSA seemed to cover specific symptoms of ASD, but two of the observations were more related to developmental level. The nine most discriminative items for ASD were identified, and among those, a cut-off limit was chosen (≥3 items). Among children with ASD, 34/37 reached the proposed cut off, compared to 0/26 and 4/23 among children in the TD and DS groups, respectively.

Conclusion:The results suggest that the OSA discriminates children with ASD from TD children and children with DS. Using the suggested cut off, OSA provides high sensitivity for ASD (92%) with a very low false positive rate.