Comparison of maternal estimates and performance-based assessment scores for young handicapped children

The authors compared maternal estimates of child perfor-mance and performance-based scores using the Learning Ac-complishment Profile. Very strong positive relationships were found for maternal estimates and evaluator ratings for overall scores as well as for four subscales. No significant difference was found for overall scores between the two data sources. A significant difference was found, however, for one subscale, gross motor. Results indicated that professionals should be aware of the purpose of individual assessment activities in order to effectively use parents as data sources. A recent emphasis in assessment procedures with young han-dicapped children has been the use of multidisciplinary teams (Cross & Goin, 1977; Orlando, 1981). In addition to psychologists, educators, and health-related professionals, parents often are in-cluded as team members (Orlando, 1981). Parental input may be gathered by any or all of the professional team members via inter-views, checklists, or questionnaires. Questions facing professionals involved in assessment pro-cedures with young handicapped children often include what type of data to collect from parents, how best to collect those data, and the relative weight to assign such information in decision-making about the child. DuBose, Langley, and Stagg (1977) suggested that professionals often limit or minimize assessment data gained from parents. A general belief among professionals is that parental reports related to the functioning level of their child may be inflated or overestimated. The term &dquo;maternal overestimation&dquo; originated with many early studies that asked mothers to provide gross approximations of their children’s abilities such as IQ scores or developmental age equivalents (Gradel, Thompson & Sheehan, 1981). Gradel et al