Issues and Recent Trends in the Assessment and Management of ID in Childhood

1. Psychological Assessment

Psychological assessment in children is a process to evaluate and understand the child’s problems in different areas, ones capabilities, strengths and limitations. Four important questions to be answered from assessment are:

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  Where is the impairment in the functioning and how is the child functioning impaired?

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  What are the consequences of the impairment and how it is impacting the normal functioning?

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  What are the other factors (social, motivational,) that contributing in the maintain of the impairment?

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  What intervention is best suited for the impairment?

The factors complicate the process of assessment with intellectual disable children in obtaining the legitimate estimate of intellectual performance, Presence of severe sensory impairment for example vision, auditory, presence of severe emotional and behavioral disturbance, medication interfere with cognitive neurological functioning. Henceforth it becomes so important that the factors needs to be addressed while assessing for intellectual assessment.

The continuous research on intellectual disability, emphasized that the assessment of intellectual functioning must be evaluated within the context of individual’s age and in relation to peer’s performance of the same age (Tasse et al., 2011). Assessment also should cater for:

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  Accuracy in assessment also relies on cultural and linguistic diversity as well as differences in communication, sensory motor and behavioral factors.

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  Assessment should also give a picture of strengths the child possesses.

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  Assessment should also list out the problem behavior and desirable behavior (Luckasson et al., 2002, p. 1)