Assessing Strengths: "Getting Along with Others Inventory" and "Learning Challenges Inventory"
What is an Inventory?
An inventory is a series of questions that help individual students identify areas of strength and needs based on how often they perform the specific task. The goal of these inventories is to begin to develop self-management skills and techniques that can be used to address behaviors through establishing goals to work |
towards. Having said this, in order to manage a behavior the child needs to be aware of their difficulties first, which is where these inventories play a major role. It is important for children with FASD to understand how to use their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses to minimize the feelings of frustration, anxiety, anger, isolation and poor self-esteem that are often associated with children with FASD and can arise from feeling incompetent. Below are two different inventories provided by the Alberta Ministry of Learning’s Programming for students with Special Needs Series for teaching students with FASD. The first inventory, "Getting Along with Others Inventory", allows the child to identify strengths and deficits in their social skills and how well they get along with others; while the second inventory, "Learning Challenges Inventory", allows the child to identify specific learning challenges that they face.
Inventory Examples (How to use the Inventories below):
Inventory Examples (How to use the Inventories below):
How to use the Inventories
The two inventories function slightly differently as they are comprised of questions that are each targeting different area of development for the child. The "Getting Along with Others Inventory" targets social development in order to set social goals, whereas the "Learning Challenges Inventory" targets learning barriers in order to set goals to overcome them. However, both are set up in the same fashion where the child goes through the inventory with an adult and checks off one of four options for each question: always, usually, sometimes, or not yet. After it is important that the teacher or educational assistant discusses the strengths and weaknesses identified by the child and they talk about how to use their strengths to help compensate for the traits that are used more rarely or not at all. After the inventory has been completed, one to two behaviors should be targeted as goals to improve the specific behavior. A baseline measurement of the behavior should be taken prior to starting the goal so that a contract can be made to increase the number of times the behavior is used by small increments. An example of this might be documenting the length of time the child can work for without stopping, so that you know where the starting point is for the increased increments. Previously discussed visual reminders can be created to cue the child to utilize the positive behavior they are working towards and the teacher should encourage when they witness self-management of the goal. The teacher or educational assistant can also track the behavior goals through the use of a graph similar to the one below that tracks progress throughout the week, allowing the child to visually see the progress they are making.
The two inventories function slightly differently as they are comprised of questions that are each targeting different area of development for the child. The "Getting Along with Others Inventory" targets social development in order to set social goals, whereas the "Learning Challenges Inventory" targets learning barriers in order to set goals to overcome them. However, both are set up in the same fashion where the child goes through the inventory with an adult and checks off one of four options for each question: always, usually, sometimes, or not yet. After it is important that the teacher or educational assistant discusses the strengths and weaknesses identified by the child and they talk about how to use their strengths to help compensate for the traits that are used more rarely or not at all. After the inventory has been completed, one to two behaviors should be targeted as goals to improve the specific behavior. A baseline measurement of the behavior should be taken prior to starting the goal so that a contract can be made to increase the number of times the behavior is used by small increments. An example of this might be documenting the length of time the child can work for without stopping, so that you know where the starting point is for the increased increments. Previously discussed visual reminders can be created to cue the child to utilize the positive behavior they are working towards and the teacher should encourage when they witness self-management of the goal. The teacher or educational assistant can also track the behavior goals through the use of a graph similar to the one below that tracks progress throughout the week, allowing the child to visually see the progress they are making.
Research supporting Inventories:
Alberta Ministry of Learning. (2004). Programming for Students with Special Need Series: Teaching Students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Alberta: Alberta Learning.
Alberta Ministry of Learning. (2004). Programming for Students with Special Need Series: Teaching Students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Alberta: Alberta Learning.