AEPS-3 and Children with Significant Disabilities

AEPS®-3 is designed for use with children whose abilities range widely, including those who have serious medical, physical, or behavioral impairments that may extend through their life span. Goals for these children need to target realistic outcomes. Progress for some children may mean increasing their enjoyment of life and helping them acquire self-help skills that increase their independence.

Assessment and inter­vention with children who have moderate to severe disabilities should be guided by input from the team and careful consideration of the child’s needs. Here are six general guidelines for meeting the diverse needs of children with significant disabilities with AEPS-3:

Use Meaningful Daily Activities

Assessment of a child with a moderate to severe disability should be completed while observing the child as they negotiate daily routines. To assess all relevant items, activities may need some modification, such as offering different types of food to assess the child’s grasping skills. For intervention, adults may need to help children gain access to different play activities. For example, a child care provider might suggest play ideas (“How about everyone plays in the sand together?”) and ways a child with disabilities might participate (“I bet Tom could dig in the sand, too, if I sit behind him”). Teachers can also encourage children to include peers with disabilities in activities. Sometimes simple solutions, such as altering the location of activities or planning an activity using a child’s standing table, may give children with disabilities an opportunity to be included.

Use Appropriate Objects and Activities

When assessing and intervening with children who have significant disabilities, it’s important to strike a balance between objects and activities that are age appropriate and of interest to the child yet meet their developmental needs. For example, use age-appropriate items such as a small toy rather than a rattle when assessing a 3-year old’s grasp. To use activities that are relevant, meaningful, and of interest to the child, select pictures of objects in which the child has shown interest when assessing or teaching object names to a child with hearing and cognitive impairments. Coordinate with families to bring familiar cultural items and traditional objects into classrooms.

Focus on Strengths

The generic composition of the AEPS-3 Test items and Curriculum content makes it possible to adapt most of them so that children’s specific strengths can be used. For example, Social-Communication items can be assessed using sign language, communication boards, or languages other than English. When teaching or intervening, design activities to capitalize on a child’s strengths and abilities. For example, a child with profound hearing and visual impairments might enjoy exploring materials using the sense of smell or touch during a painting activity. Materials can be added or adapted to an activity to provide opportunities for all children to participate to the greatest extent possible.

Provide Necessary Structure and Guidance

Children with significant disabilities may need additional structure and guidance during assessment. For example, a child with cerebral palsy may need to be assessed while at a standing table. A child with limited range of motion may need an arm brace before their manipulation skills are assessed. A child with cognitive delay may need simultaneous verbal and visual cues.

When designing intervention activities, facilitate specialized, individualized support for children with disabilities using the suggestions in the AEPS-3 Curriculum. For example, a child with a motor disability may use a bowl with a suction cup base or a spoon with a larger handle to improve their indepen­dent eating skills. In circle time, a child with severe behavioral challenges may sit beside an assistant who can help the child participate. Modeling questions for the child (“Can I play too?”) or using sign language with children who are nonverbal are effective ways to provide structure and guidance.

Promote Social Skills

Acquiring appropriate play and interactive behavior is of paramount importance to children with significant disabilities. One area of AEPS-3 is devoted to developing and enhancing social-emotional behavior. The test provides information on children’s social-emotional skill levels and links to curriculum routines and activities designed to help children grow and expand their play and interactive repertoires. For exam­ple, for children with limited play skills, the curriculum offers a range of research-based strategies to promote development of interactive play skills within multiple contexts of interactive play.

Target Simpler Skills

The AEPS-3 Test is organized into areas composed of goals and simpler or earlier associated content called objectives. AEPS-3 Curriculum content is linked to the goals and objectives of each developmental area. For most children, identifying their skill level in the objective sequence is sufficient to target the appropriate curricular content. However, this doesn’t work for all children, especially those with more severe impairments.

One way to make AEPS-3 skills easier is to modify the criteria. For example, if an item criterion calls for a child to use two color, two shape, and two size concepts correctly, the item can be simplified initially to using only two color concepts. AEPS-3 also offers Foundation Steps, which reflect simpler developmental content associated with many goals and objectives. These intermediate skills can serve as building blocks to acquiring more advanced skills of subsequent AEPS-3 items.

AEPS-3 can be used with children with a wide range of disabilities, including Down syndrome, cere­bral palsy, autism, intellectual disabilities, or sensory impairments with significant and lasting impacts. Use the guidelines in this post to ensure the most accurate assessment for children with significant disabilities—and inter­ventions that help them make real progress.

This post was adapted from Bricker, D., & Johnson, J. J. (Eds.). (2022). AEPS®-3 Volume 1: User’s guide. In D. Bricker, C. Dionne, J. Grisham, J. J. Johnson, M. Macy, K. Slentz, & M. Waddell, Assessment, Evaluation, and Program­ming System for Infants and Children, Third Edition (AEPS®-3). Brookes Publishing Co.