Assessment, Applied Developmental

What is Applied Developmental Assessment?

First, to be “applied,” assessment should have purpose and utility. There are different reasons for assessment, most of them related to the well-being of the person or group being assessed. One purpose for assessment, called “screening,” is usually also the first step in a multilevel assessment process. The goal of screening is to identify individuals at risk for poorer developmental outcomes and thus to reduce the number of individuals who receive more in-depth assessment. Traditionally, the purpose of this second stage of more in-depth evaluation was to provide information for diagnosis. However, the term diagnosis is derived from a medical model approach to assessment that seeks evidence of symptoms or deficits that indicate a specific disease or disorder. From an ADS perspective, the goal of this second level of assessment is broader than diagnosis and not limited to disease or disorder. Rather, the goal of in-depth developmental assessments is to construct a conceptual framework that provides contextually rich information on the child's developmental strengths and vulnerabilities to provide a foundation for understanding the problem or issue that has brought the child to the assessment. The last stage of developmental assessment is to apply the conceptual framework from the second stage of the assessment process to the identification of an intervention strategy that will help remediate a current developmental problem, prevent secondary problems from emerging, and optimize developmental pathways. Applied developmental interventions are usually designed as programs serving more than one child. The intervention thus includes program planning and evaluation at both the individual level (monitoring changes) and at the group level.