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AEPS-Related

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What is AEPS?

AEPS®, the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System for Infants and Children, Second Edition, is a criterion-referenced, curriculum-based assessment, evaluation, and programming tool. With AEPS, early interventionists and other interested professionals can build a comprehensive and detailed picture of children’s skills by observing children as they participate in daily activities. The highly sensitive AEPS Test accurately measures children’s progress in six key developmental areas: fine motor, gross motor, cognitive, adaptive, social-communication, and social. With AEPS Test results, professionals can create higher quality IFSP/IEP goals—goals that are measurable, functional, and easier to sequence and embed in daily activities. The hundreds of targeted interventions keyed directly to AEPS Test items then enable professionals and family caregivers to zero in on the programming that will enable children to make the most progress. Extensively studied, AEPS is widely regarded as one of the best criterion-referenced tools available for yielding valid and reliable results. Its appropriateness for use with all young children, including those with disabilities, and its ease of use for developing meaningful goals and intervention content have made it one of the most well-established and well-liked systems among early childhood professionals. The AEPS is comprised of four print volumes: Volume I: AEPS Administration Guide Volume II: AEPS Test for Birth to Three Years and Three to Six Years Volume III: AEPS Curriculum for Birth to Three Years Volume IV: AEPS Curriculum for Three to Six Years Print forms and a CD-ROM of printable forms are also available.

What is AEPSinteractive™?

AEPSinteractive™ (AEPSi™) is a web-based management system for AEPS® that makes it easier for AEPS users to make the most of AEPS, meet reporting mandates, determine eligibility, and manage and track child data. AEPSi has all the integrity of AEPS plus the time- and paperwork-saving convenience of automated scoring and powerful functionality that transforms AEPS findings into child progress reports and OSEP Child Outcomes Reports. Plus, AEPSi enables Providers (the term AEPSi uses collectively for early interventionists, teachers, child care providers, and all other professionals using AEPS’s web-based system) to assess and score up to six children simultaneously with sets of engaging activities and allows team members to track and store child information in a central, accessible place.

How does AEPS support best practice for assessment in early childhood?

AEPS is a curriculum-based, linked assessment, goal development, intervention, and evaluation system developed as an alternative to norm-referenced tests to support the delivery of quality instruction and intervention to all children—including those with delays or disabilities—and their families. AEPS meets the recommended practices for Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education as outlined by the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Guidelines for Appropriate Curriculum and Assessment in Programs Serving Children Ages 3 Through 8 and supports best practice in the following critical ways: AEPS is an authentic assessment that relies on observations of a child in familiar learning environments (e.g., home, classroom) during everyday activities (e.g., play, mealtime) rather than in a contrived arrangement in an unfamiliar testing room. AEPS permits modifications and accommodations for individual differences and needs and is sensitive to small increments of change in children’s behaviors. AEPS links test items directly to goal development and effective interventions to help ensure that children make progress over time. Assessment with AEPS is collaborative, relying on the observations of multiple practitioners, and ensures that parents and other caregivers contribute by observing and providing input as team members. AEPS tools such as the Family Report and Child Progress Record help keep families involved across all phases of assessment, intervention, and evaluation. AEPS consists of functional, measurable, and teachable skills that are meaningful to the child and family in everyday life. For example, rather than focusing on whether a child can fit 8 pegs into a test pegboard, AEPS assesses how the child is able to fit his or her own real-life items into their defined spaces.

Who can use AEPS?

AEPS can be used by practitioners and community-based programs (educational, social, medical) that provide services to young children. It is designed to be used by individuals or teams of professionals including teachers, interventionists, psychologists, therapists, home visitors, mental health providers, and nurses. Caregivers are encouraged to be part of AEPS assessments as well with the AEPS Family Report.

What is the age range for AEPS?

AEPS Test items span typical child development from birth to age six. The AEPS Test was developed to be used with children from birth to age three (Level I) and from age three to six (Level II). Refer to the AEPS Administration Guide (Volume I) for guidance on making decisions on which Level of the AEPS Test to use for older children and/or children with significant delays.

How does AEPS work in the classroom setting? In the home setting? In the clinical setting?

The AEPS Curriculum is activity-based, meaning that interventions are embedded into children’s natural daily activities, play, and routines; therefore, it can be used across a variety of settings throughout the day. The observations of children required for the AEPS Test can similarly happen wherever the child is, whether in the classroom, at home, or in a clinical setting.

Can AEPS be used with all children?

Yes. AEPS can be used with all children, including children who have disabilities or are at risk for developmental delays. AEPS was created to help young children acquire critical skills and concepts that will enhance their lives as well as improve the lives of those around them (e.g., walking, talking, problem solving, interacting with peers), and all children benefit from the AEPS Test’s sensitivity and the Curriculum’s effective interventions.

How does AEPS work for children who do not have an IFSP or IEP but are at higher risk due to environmental circumstances? Can Head Start or Early Head Start teachers reliably use AEPS?

The AEPS Test is designed to examine children’s strengths, emerging skills, and areas of need—it is not specific to children with disabilities and is used with great success with children at risk and with typically developing children as well as children with disabilities. The developers of AEPS have conducted research on using AEPS in Head Start programs, and the research has shown that Head Start teachers administer the AEPS with reliability and fidelity with training and support. Many of the AEPS assessment activities for preschoolers were developed and field-tested with the Head Start population. We encourage Head Start and Early Head Start programs to use AEPS as a strong alternative to less sensitive assessment tools.

Can AEPS be used with children who have more significant disabilities?

Yes, absolutely. AEPS can be used with all children, including those with significant disabilities. The highly sensitive AEPS Test was designed to measure smaller increments of progress than other assessments so that it can more accurately measure progress over time in children with disabilities. Providers are encouraged to make modifications to the assessment criteria as needed to make sure the AEPS Test is individually and culturally sensitive. Guidance for doing so is provided in the AEPS Administration Guide (Volume I).

How can I use AEPS to document a child’s progress?

The E in AEPS stands for evaluation, meaning progress monitoring. The AEPS Test is designed to be administered several times during a year in order to measure the child’s progress over time as providers design and deliver interventions based on each assessment’s results. The child’s progress will be evident through changes in the child’s scores and notes on the AEPS Test, and you can visually track the child’s progress using the very popular Child Progress Record. AEPSi makes it even easier for teams to track and report progress—all scoring and progress reports in AEPSi are automated (including the Child Progress Record) and are easily accessible to all members of a child’s team.

How does AEPS request and use input from parents? What functions does AEPS have for reporting to parents?

An integral part of the AEPS assessment, the AEPS Family Report provides parents and caregivers with the opportunity to describe their child’s interest, participation, enjoyment, and/or difficulties in daily, family, and community activities. As part of the Family Report, parents complete an assessment of their child’s skills that has a one-to-one correspondence with the goals assessed by the AEPS Test. The AEPS developers strongly encourage family participation in assessment to help identify the child’s strengths and needs. AEPS users are also strongly encouraged to include the family’s priorities as intervention targets. AEPS and AEPSi are useful at a variety of levels to parents and administrators. Families like the AEPS because their priorities, observations, knowledge, and concerns are an integral part of the AEPS assessment gathered through completing the Family Report. And because the AEPS prioritizes meaningful, everyday skills for children, families’ relationships and communication with their children often improve with AEPS interventions. AEPS families also love the AEPS Child Progress Record, which offers a “picture” of a child’s progress and how close the child is to reaching his or her goals. Coming in a future release, families will be able to log on to AEPSi and complete the Family Report on-line, view the teachers’ entries in their child’s on-line journal, and add their own journal entries, fostering even greater collaboration among the child’s team.

How long does it take to complete the AEPS Test?

Administered in isolation, the AEPS Test takes about 2 hours for providers who are new to AEPS. However, the AEPS Test is not typically administered in isolation; as an authentic assessment, the AEPS Test should be completed through observation of children’s behavior during the activities of the day. We generally recommend that the AEPS Test be administered over a 2-week period in order to permit observations of the child in a variety of activities. In situations where observers do not have the opportunity to see specific behaviors during routine activities, they may create a situation designed to elicit or directly test the behavior. AEPSi contains sets of assessment activities that cover all of the AEPS Test items and enable assessment of several children at a time as they participate in routine and planned activities throughout the instructional day. AEPSi also includes automated scoring and other features that can significantly shorten assessment time.

Are results of the AEPS Test compromised if only certain sections of the Test are given?

No data have been collected that directly address this question; however, if providers follow the specified assessment procedures and adhere to each test item’s criterion, there should be no reason that information derived from, for example, the Social-Communication Area should not provide an accurate picture of a child’s development in this area. In most cases, we do recommend that that you administer the entire AEPS Test the first time you assess a child. Completion of the entire assessment rules out potential delays or problems in other developmental areas.

Why are curriculum-based assessments gaining more attention?

Traditionally, early childhood assessment has relied heavily on the use of standardized norm-referenced tests to document a delay or disability and produce a label or diagnosis to qualify children for publicly funded services. However, these tests ultimately do little if anything to enhance services to young children. The findings of curriculum-based assessments (CBAs), in contrast, directly inform instruction and intervention planning and enable the development of meaningful IFSP/IEP goals and effective interventions. Because high quality CBAs such as AEPS can provide a viable mechanism through which programs can meet both best practices for authentic assessment and accountability mandates, many states and territories are selecting CBAs over norm-referenced tests.

Besides providing information regarding individual children’s development, what utility does AEPS have for program administrators?

Using AEPS and AEPSi gives program administrators confidence that the child data they are submitting to their states and using to make programmatic decisions are accurate and valid. It’s also hassle-free to generate reports; in addition to creating individual child progress reports, AEPSi enables administrators to easily create aggregate reports that can be used at local school or program, district, state, and federal levels. The one-click OSEP Report and Eligibility Cutoff Score Reports in particular make it easier for administrators to meet two critical challenges—determining accountability and eligibility—without sacrificing quality programming or wasting time and scarce funds on administering separate assessments. AEPS should help enable programs to do what they exist to do—improve outcomes for children with delays and disabilities.

See also

 Accountability and OSEP Child Outcomes Reporting
Standards and Alignments
Eligibility
Research
Features of AEPSi
Group Assessment
Technical Capabilities
General
Training and Support
Costs and Ordering