Child Assessment: Testing for Intelligence

            The assessment of children at any stage, from birth through early preschool years, reveal much need information about the child that serves as a means of providing an academic profile to measure developmental levels for each child in areas of cognitive, social, emotional, behavioral, and physical abilities.  I believe that the use of assessments can provide an indication of whether children are developing normally or whether the child may be exhibiting difficulties in any areas.  The use of age appropriate assessments allow educators to develop educational plans and goals for each child based on their individual skills, knowledge, and goals.  The assessment also provides information to parents about their child’s abilities areas of needs.  I feel that the more information that you are able to gather regarding a child’s abilities the better you are able to plan, prepare and develop goals for children to reach their maximum achievement. 

            Not all areas, of children’s development, are easily measurable by testing and assessment. Children who are shy, withdrawn, experiencing difficulties at home because of poverty, abuse or neglect or they simply do not test well.  There are other factors such as the level of development of each child.  No two children develop at the same rate during their early years and some are in need of more individual instruction than others are.  We must consider each of these issues when looking at the whole child and not just, what we learn from assessments.

            Most states and countries assess school age children using standardized testing. The problem that I have always had with standardized testing is that although it gives measurable data regarding the skills and knowledge of children, it uses the same measurements to determine children’s level of learning.  In parts of the UK and France, Norway and Japan, according to Hall & Ozerk, (2008), they seek to monitor the quality of learning of their pupils at national level through assessment of pupil achievement against national norms or competencies within specified subjects and their assessments are both criterion- and curriculum-referenced.  Hall and Ozerk, (2008 pg. 15), also determined that what distinguishes the assessment policy in England as compared to other countries is the degree to which it is used as a tool, a) to control what is taught; b) to police how well it is taught; and c) to encourage parents to use the resultant assessment information to select schools for their children.

            The use of assessments in measuring children’s abilities can be a positive and useful tool but should not be the only determining factor.  In order to know what goals and objective to use in planning and preparing for children individually, we must consider other outside factors that could have either a direct or indirect affect on the child’s ability to learn.  Another important factor to consider is whether the tool chosen is age appropriate and whether it is reliable in what you seek to measure.    

 

Reference:

Hall, K., & Ozerk, K. (2008).  Primary curriculum and assessment:  England and other

countries. Primary Review Research Survey. University of Cambridge: Cambridge, CB2 8PQ, U.K.