Alternate Assessment for Students With Significant Cognitive Disabilities: An Educator's Guide

To support K–12 students with significant disabilities and get an accurate picture of their skills and knowledge, schools need to implement effective alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS). This is the guidebook every team should have—not only to develop successful AA-AAS linked with grade-level content standards, but also to ensure the kind of quality instruction that leads to higher achievement.

The follow-up to Kleinert and Kearns's pioneering Alternate Assessment, this cutting-edge book synthesizes current research on AA-AAS and gives education professionals strategies for implementing assessments and improving instruction. With a strong focus on practical classroom application, the expert authors show readers how to

• understand the key principles of alternate assessment, including validity, technical quality, and content standards
• align instruction with assessment across major academic content areas: reading, math, science, and social studies
• implement a clear four-step process to improve student access to the general curriculum
• use multiple measures to ensure that assessments accurately reflect students' abilities
• link IEPs with grade-level content standards
• teach relevant functional and life skills within grade level content
• build students' communicative competence to improve their educational outcomes
• educate families about the purpose and content of alternate assessments
• decode the federal mandates for alternate assessments and the most recent regulations
• see how alternate assessment works in the context of a school's broader accountability system

To help educators ensure a high-quality inclusive education for students with disabilities, the authors include detailed, step-by-step examples of modified lessons in math, reading, science, and social studies. Readers will see how instruction and assessment can be adapted for students of all ages with a wide range of abilities and communication needs.

The definitive resource on AA-AAS—and an essential supplementary text for future general and special educators—this book will make alternate assessment meaningful and lead the way to higher academic achievement for students with significant disabilities.

Harold L. Kleinert, Ed.D., is Executive Director of the Interdisciplinary Human Development Institute, University of Kentucky, and Associate Adjunct Professor in the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Previously, Dr. Kleinert served as Director of Training for the Interdisciplinary Human Development Institute. A veteran educator, Dr. Kleinert taught special education at the classroom level for 14 years before directing a wide range of federal and state projects, including the Kentucky Alternate Portfolio Study, aimed at improving services for students with significant disabilities.

Jacqui Farmer Kearns, Ed.D., is Associate Director of the Inclusive Large-Scale Standards and Assessment Group (ILSSA) at the Interdisciplinary Human Development Institute (IHDI) at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Among her many accomplishments at the IHDI, Dr. Kearns has served as the principal investigator on two groundbreaking initiatives for students with disabilities: the Kentucky Statewide Alternate Portfolio Project and the Including Students with Deaf Blindness in Large-Scale Educational Assessments Project. Dr. Kearns previously directed the Kentucky Statewide Systems Change Project for Students with Severe Disabilities and has extensive experience as a classroom teacher for students with moderate and severe disabilities.

Lynn Ahlgrim-Delzell, Ph.D., Dr. Ahlgrim-Delzell's research interests include literacy instruction and assessment and research methods for low-incidence populations. She has over 30 years of experience working with individuals with severe disability in various capacities.

Diane M. Browder, Ph.D., is Snyder Distinguished Professor and doctoral coordinator of Special Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Browder has more than 2 decades of experience with research and writing on assessment and instruction of students with severe disabilities. Recently, she has focused on alternate assessment and linking assessment and instruction to the general curriculum. She is Principal Investigator for an Institute of Education Sciences—funded center with a focus on teaching students with moderate and severe disabilities to read. She is a partner in the National Center on Alternate Assessment and Principal Investigator for Office of Special Education Programs—funded projects on access to the general curriculum.

Belva C. Collins, Ed.D., served as a professor and chair in the Department of Special Education and Child Development at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and in the Department of Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education at the University of Kentucky. She now holds the title of Professor Emeritus at both institutions. Dr. Collins began her career as a teacher of students with intellectual disability in rural Southwestern Virginia before coming to the University of Kentucky to work as a research assistant on several federally funded grants to validate the use of response prompting strategies in special education. She continued this line of research throughout her career in higher education and was successful in guiding the applied research of her students in investigating variations of systematic instruction in classroom and community settings. This work provides the foundation for this text. In addition to disseminating her own scholarly writing, Dr. Collins served as the executive editor of Rural Special Education Quarterly, the primary publication of the American Council on Rural Special Education (ACRES). Recent awards include the ACRES Eagle Award for service to rural special education, the North Carolina Teacher Educator Award, and the TED-Pearson Award for excellence in teacher education. She now devotes her time to writing and presenting on the topics of systematic instruction and special education teacher leadership.

Bree A. Jimenez, Ph.D., studies general curriculum access and assessment for students with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities. Specifically, she investigates math and science instruction aligned to grade-level standards.

Pamela J. Mims, Ph.D., Dr. Mims received her Ph.D. in special education in 2009 from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research interests include systematic instruction strategies and access to the general curriculum for students with significant disabilities. She has published multiple journal articles and book chapters and presents her work nationally.

David K. Pugalee, Ph.D., has done extensive research on the role of language in teaching and learning of mathematics. He has published extensively in this area as well as articles and books on mathematics and technology and mathematics and special education.

Rachel Quenemoen, M.S., conducts research and consultation/technical assistance on educational change processes to ensure that students with disabilities are included in and benefit from reform efforts. She has written numerous articles, chapters, research briefs, and presentations on improving outcomes for students with disabilities, including coauthoring a book on alternate assessment. She has worked for 35 years as an educational sociologist and currently serves on the assessment and accountability technical advisory committees for Idaho, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Washington, DC.

Shawnee Y. Wakeman, Ph.D., Dr. Wakeman's research interest includes the relationship of the principal to the education of students with disabilities, access to the general curriculum and how it is enacted for students with significant cognitive disabilities, alignment of the educational system and the policy implications of those alignment issues, and alternate assessment. Dr. Wakeman is currently involved in several federally funded projects and publications related to alternate assessment and curriculum alignment.