Assessment at Rabbi

One of the frequently asked questions is, “Do you still need to assess my child, even though he was already assessed by the doctor?” and our answer is always, “Yes, we still need to assess your child so we can have a first hand experience and impression of the child’s behavior as well as to know his/her competency. This is also the time that we sit and have a talk with the parents/guardian.” Other than that, it is also the time we get to know the child, apart from his/her behavior, through playing with him/her.

Assessment is the systematic basis for making inferences about the learning and development of students. It is the process of defining, selecting, designing, collecting, analyzing, interpreting and using information to increase students’ learning and development (Erwin, 1991). Through assessment, institutions and the like are able to look at an individual's personality, behavior, intelligence, skills, and attitude towards work, school or life in general. It somewhat serves as a summary of the person and it would determine whether the person is fit to be admitted or not . Similarly, behavioral assessment have similar goals and it would help in making the intervention to be provided effective for the individual.

At Rabbi, we emphasize assessing the child before accepting in order to know and see the pressing issues, learn and identify the cause of the issues, the child’s reaction to stressors, level of behavior and most importantly, to understand the child. It is through the assessment that we are able to have an initial interaction with the person or child and to establish a connection and to understand the child so that we can convey it to their parents/ guardians. However, Rabbi stresses that we are not capable of coming up with a diagnosis and such, on the other hand, we give importance to the doctor’s diagnosis as part of the data we receive.

Assessments serve as our starting point in understanding the child and guide for the intervention we are going to provide. Further, behaviors seen in the assessment might not be all. Behaviors show up based on the person or the child is with, environment he/she is in, the situation and stressor given, some might show during the course of the intervention. As previously mentioned, assessment helps the service providers to know and identify the pressing issues of the person or the child in terms of deficits, excesses or inappropriateness parameters and the circumstances in which behavior began and occurred since. It allows us to identify patterns of responses (behavioral and emotional) that accompany specific stimulus events that might be tied to directly to the pressing issue or might be associated indirectly, plausibly related but unacknowledged by the parents/guardian or family or is only able to be acknowledged during the assessment (McKay and Tryon, 2002). As part of the data we get from the assessment, taking into consideration the environment, culture, norms that the person grew up and familiar with as well as the current health condition of the child and the guardian and the family history as some of behavior disorders may be hereditary and genetically inherited. As it might be one of the contributing factors for the cause of the behavior.

It is through behavioral assessment that we are able to gather essential data for the purpose of creation of the student’s program that would deem fit to the child’s problematic behavior and to have an agreement with the parents with regards to their expected outcome. It is also at that moment that we are able to talk to the parents/ guardians of the child and have a glimpse of the child in their eyes. For some, it can be an eye-opener to what their child is and it is also one of the opportunities we have to help the parents understand who their child is and to encourage them that it’s not the end of the world but a start of a wonderful journey.