The language assessment is based upon The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP; Sundberg, 2007).
The assessment is based on Skinner's (1957) functional analysis of verbal behavior and typical language development milestones commonly identified by speech and language pathologists, pediatricians, and psychologists.
The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment is designed to identify existing language and related skills for students with autism, or those with other language delays.
The results of the assessment will:
Determine the operant levels of verbal and related skills
Identify language acquisition and learning barriers (VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment)
Obtain developmental comparison data
Determine where to begin intervention and/or placement
Establish IFSP/IEP goals
Curriculum design
Teaching strategies (e.g., augmentative communication, discrete trial instruction, natural environment training)
Track progress
Make changes.
The VB-MAPP contains 16 separate measurements of language and language related skills (e.g., mand, tact, intraverbal, echoic, listener resonding, group skills and classroom routines).
Most of the scales correspond to Skinner's classification of the verbal operants (i.e., echoic, mand, tact, intraverbal).
Standard linguistic measures such as mean length utterance (MLU), vocabulary size, and the use of various syntactical and grammatical conventions (autoclitics) are also assessed.
In addition, a variety of listener skills, visual perception skills, vocal output, play, and socialization skills are also assessed.
In addition to the VB-MAPP Skills Assessment, the VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment is completed in order to identify and analyze areas that may be impeding learning and language acquisition.
The Barriers Assessment identifies and scores 21 different learning and language barriers (e.g., instructional control, behavior problems, defective mand or tact repertoire, prompt dependence dependence, scrolling responses, failure to attend to stimuli).
intake form (word doc); intake form (pdf)
