Psych 312 Exam

• benefits of early intervention

  • helps young children with special needs
  • Benefits, the families of young children with special needs
  • benefits society by reducing healthcare and educational cost
• Headstart program

  • Started in the US in 1964
  • Purpose was to provide preschool education to children from low income families (ages 3 to 5)
• Headstart program research

  • Children were less likely to be placed in special education classes
  • Less likely to repeat a grade
  • More likely to finish high school
  • More likely to score higher on IQ tests
• Ontario aboriginal Headstart Association

  • Promotes early childhood, education designed and regulated by indigenous communities
  • 13 sites across urban and northern Ontario
  • Involves cultural diversity and local community
  • Six components: culture and language, education, nutrition, health, promotion, social support, and parent engagement
• Developmental indicators of problems in kids

  • Gross motor skills
  • Fine motor skills
  • Auditory processing
  • Visual processing
  • Communication/oral language
  • Problems with attention
• gross motor skills

  • Large muscle groups
  • Important for good balance, coordination, exercise and strength
  • Playing in a park
  • Hopscotch
  • Keeping balance
  • Any sort of physical activity will engage these muscles
  • Obstacle courses
  • Simon says
  • just dance/dancing videos
• Fine motor skills

  • Engaging coordination in the fingers, wrist and hand
  • Playing with Play-Doh
  • Making jewellery with beads and string
  • Doing artwork/writing
  • Cooking
  • Building blocks
• Auditory perception

  • Interpreting what is heard
  • Phonological awareness
  • Auditory discrimination
  • Auditory memory
  • Auditory sequencing
  • Auditory blending
• Phonological awareness


  Capacity to recognize the individual sounds within words
• Auditory discrimination


  Judging where the sound is coming from if it’s near or far
• Auditory memory


  Ability to remember sound patterns for example, put the green block on your desk and the red flower on the floor
• Auditory sequencing


  Following the directions in order, for example, go to the box, open it and bring me what’s inside
• Auditory blending


  Ability to perceive individual sounds as a whole ( SSS AAA NNN DDD- Sand)
• Visual perception

  • Interpreting what is seen
  • Visual discrimination
  • Figure ground discrimination
  • Visual closure
  • Object, letter, recognition
  • Reversals
• Visual discrimination


  Ability to see the differences between objects that are similar
• Figure ground discrimination


  Ability to distinguish and object from its background

  example being asked to find specific objects in a drawer or cupboard
• Visual closure


  Ability to visualize a complete hole when given incomplete information or a partial picture. Example puzzles.
• Object letter recognition


  Ability of a young girl, to recognize the letters in her name
• Reversals


  Having trouble in writing P or Q or B and D
• Sensory integration therapy

  • Tactile system
  • Vestibular system
  • Proprioceptive system
• Tactile system


  Involves the sense of touch
• Vestibular system


  Involves the inner ear, allowing us to detect motion
• Proprioceptive system


  Stimulation from the muscles, and within the body itself, which permits awareness of one’s body position
• Phases of assessment

  1. Child find ( locate children, increased public awareness)
  2. Screening ( identify children who need further study)
  3. Diagnosing ( determine extent of delay and plan intervention)
  4. Evaluating ( measure progress, plan for transition)
• What are the assessments for?

  • Cognitive development
  • Motor development
  • Communication development
  • Social/emotional development
  • Adaptive development
• Child behaviour checklist

  • Commonly use standardized norm reference test
  • Ages 6 to 18
  • Eight domains assessed for emotional and behavioural problems:
  • Social withdrawal/depressed
  • Somatic complaints
  • Anxious/depressed
  • Social problems
  • Thought problems
  • Attention problems
  • Rule, breaking behaviour
  • Aggressive behaviour
• Child, behaviour, checklist continued

  • Takes parents 15 to 20 minutes to fill out
  • General information about child is provided like school home in relationship relationships
  • Professionals like clinical psychologist and counsellors use this tool
  • Is not a diagnostic tool
• Vinland adaptive behaviour scale

  • Standardized norm reference test- ages birth-90
  • Commonly used rating scale of information provided by informant who knows the person well, for example a parent
  • May be helpful in assessing intellectual disabilities, autism, traumatic brain, injury, forms of dementia
  • Can help progress monitoring, and program planning
  • Domains covered are: communication, daily, living skills, socialization, motor skills, maladaptive behaviour
• Problems of adolescence, with LD and related disabilities

  • Passive learning
  • Poor self-concept
  • Severe deficits in basic academic skills
  • Below average performance
  • Deficits in work related skills
  • Social and behavioural problems
  • Attention difficulties
  • Executive function skills
  • Lack of motivation
• Transition

  • Process of moving from one type of program to another example school to school, secondary school to work fields
• Transition planning

  • In Ontario, it is recommended to start developing a transition plan for leaving high school at age 14
  • Focus on improving, academic and functional achievement
  • Facilitate movement from school to post school activities
  • Identify measurable post secondary goals
  • Define the transition activities
  • Clarify, roles and responsibilities
  • Identify a timeline
• Brett will get a job when he gets out of school


  Not a good transition goal, very vague, doesn’t know who’s responsible
• Jason will be able to complete a job application

  It’s a first step, but there are still many sub steps required so not a very adequate transition goal
• Kendra will locate two resources in her hometown area about her field of interest which is being a beautician

  Adequate transition goal, self-determination, and active learning, could be other people around to help with this that would be good to acknowledge
• Steps for teaching a learning strategy

  • Teacher, pre-test students, and obtain a commitment
  • Teacher describes the learning strategy
  • Teacher models the strategy
  • Student verbally practises the strategy
  • Students have controlled practises and feedback
  • Students have advanced practice and feedback
  • Teacher post test students
  • Students generalize the learning strategy
• Self advocacy skills

  • Ability to speak on one’s own behalf, and represents ones needs and interest
  • Important to achieve confidence and sense of identity and make decisions as an independent adult
• Canadian charter of rights and freedoms


  Declares that you cannot be discriminated against for your disability
• Learning and study strategies inventory (LASSI)

  • 60 items total, 10 scales
  • Compare student responses to norms for a large group of students
  • Each scale is associated with success in college and university
  • Provides a list of strengths and weaknesses, which help develop treatment plan to optimize strength and bolster weaknesses
• Anxiety- worrying about doing poorly affects my concentration on test


  Will
• Will


  Attitudes and interest in college and receptivity to learning