SKILLS ASSESSMENTS

Skills Assessments

Skills Assessments are part of comprehensive ABA services! Our clinicians are trained in skills assessments that allow for a road map toward autonomy!

At Adaptive Steps, we use comprehensive skills assessments to get a clear picture of your child's current abilities and identify areas where they can grow. These assessments help us create an individualized treatment plan that's just right for them. Here's a look at some of the assessments we might use:

1. The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills – Revised (ABLLS-R)
The ABLLS-R is a comprehensive assessment tool used to evaluate your child's language and other critical learning skills. It looks at a wide range of abilities that are important for everyday functioning and learning.
What it measures: The ABLLS-R assesses skills across 25 different areas, including:
  1. Basic Language and Behavior
     a. Cooperation, visual performance, requesting, labeling, imitation, receptive language (understanding what is said)
  2. Academic Skills:
     a. Reading, writing, math
  3. Self-Help Skills:
     a. Dressing, eating, hygiene
  4. Motor Skills:
     a. Gross and fine motor abilities
  5. Social Interaction:
     a. How your child interacts with others.
How it helps: The ABLLS-R provides a detailed snapshot of your child's current skill levels. This information helps our therapists identify specific learning goals and track your child's progress over time. It helps us understand what skills your child has mastered and what skills need to be taught.

2. The Assessment of Functional Living Skills (AFLS)
The AFLS focuses on practical, everyday skills that are essential for independence and success in various environments. Unlike assessments that focus primarily on language, the AFLS looks at how well your child can perform tasks needed for daily living.
What it measures: The AFLS is divided into different modules that assess a variety of functional skills, such as:
  1. Basic Living Skills:
     a. Dressing, hygiene, toileting, bathing.
  2. Home Skills:
     a. Meal preparation, cleaning, laundry.
  3. Community Participation:
     a. Shopping, using public transportation, and following community rules.
  4. School Skills:
     a. Following classroom routines and completing assignments.   5. Vocational Skills:
     a. Skills related to work and employment.
How it helps: The AFLS helps us identify the specific functional skills your child needs to develop to become more independent at home, in school, and in the community. This assessment guides the development of interventions focused on increasing your child's ability to care for themselves and participate more fully in daily life.

3. The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP)
The VB-MAPP is a comprehensive assessment tool based on B.F. Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior. It focuses on evaluating your child's language, learning, and social skills from a behavioral perspective.
What it measures: The VB-MAPP has five main components:
  1. Milestones Assessment: Evaluates 170 measurable language and learning milestones across different developmental levels.
  2. Barriers Assessment: Identifies common learning and language barriers that may be hindering your child's progress.
  3. Transition Assessment: Assesses your child's readiness for different educational or learning environments.
  4. Task Analysis and Skills Tracking: Provides a framework for breaking down complex skills into smaller steps and tracking progress.
  5. Placement and IEP Goals: Offers guidance for developing appropriate educational and treatment goals.
How it helps: The VB-MAPP provides a clear understanding of your child's verbal behavior repertoire (how they use language to communicate). It helps us identify any language delays or barriers and develop targeted interventions to improve their communication skills and overall learning.

4. The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) Assessment
The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) is an early intervention approach for young children with autism, typically between the ages of 12 and 48 months. While it's a comprehensive intervention model, it also includes a detailed assessment component.
What it measures: The ESDM assessment evaluates your young child's development across several key areas through observation and interaction, including:
  1. Cognitive Skills:
     a. Problem-solving, exploration.
  2. Communication:
     a. Verbal and nonverbal communication, understanding language.
  3. Social Skills:
     a. Engagement with others, imitation, sharing.
  4. Motor Skills:
     a. Gross and fine motor abilities.
  5. Adaptive Behavior:
     a. Self-care skills
  6. Affect:
     a. Emotional expression and regulation.
How it helps: The ESDM assessment helps us understand your young child's developmental strengths and challenges within a play-based and relationship-focused context. This allows our team to create highly individualized and engaging interventions that promote early learning and development in a naturalistic way.

5. Socially Savvy
"Socially Savvy" assesses and conceptualizes social-skills deficits and helps to design effective interventions with a more general focus on improving social skills. It focuses on breaking down broad areas of social functioning into concrete skills.
What it measures: The Socially Savvy assessment evaluates social skills areas including:
  1. Joint Attention:
     a. Skills that involve showing shared interest or enjoyment
  2. Social Play:
     a. Skills related to engaging in various levels of interactive play with other children
  3. Self-Regulation:
     a. Skills related to demonstrating flexibility and the ability to regulate behavioral reactions in response to unexpected changes, making mistakes, being given corrective feedback, or other difficult situations
  4. Social/Emotional:
     a. Skills related to identifying and appropriately responding to different emotions in oneself and others
  5. Social Language:
     a. Skills related to using language to respond to, initiate, and maintain various levels of social interaction
  6. Classroom/Group Behavior:
     a. Skills related to following the rules and meeting expectations put in place by adults or that are necessary for group activities
  7. Nonverbal Social Language:
a. Skills related to reading and using nonverbal communication as part of social interactions
How it helps: Understanding your child's social skill strengths and weaknesses allows us to develop targeted interventions to help them build meaningful relationships, navigate social situations successfully, and improve their overall social competence.

At Adaptive Steps, we believe that comprehensive skills assessments are essential for creating effective and individualized ABA therapy programs. We will always discuss the results of these assessments with you and involve you in the development of your child's treatment plan. Please don't hesitate to ask us any questions you may have about these or any other assessment tools we use!