assessment

Assessment

==[| Mark Sundberg's VB-MAPP]== ===Posted by: "ChristinaBurkABA@aol.com" ChristinaBurkABA@aol.com  [| christinaburk]===

Fri Sep 19, 2008 8:00 pm (PDT)
Hi, folks. Sorry for the cross-post, but I just finished Mark Sundberg's two-day workshop introducing the "final" published version of his VB-MAPP system, and I had to share some quick thoughts with you all. I am so excited about this tool and really think it's going to impact the way we assess and set up programming for our kids. After listening to Mark present, getting my hands on the materials, and talking more about it with him directly, I really think that the VB-MAPP is something anyone teaching VB should be using. Based on what I've seen and tried with it so far, I think it addresses many, if not all, of the concerns/questions left or raised by the ABLLS, provides an incredibly well-designed, easy, and fairly fast means of getting a picture of each student, subsequently indicates functional and appropriate targets for teaching, and puts the analysis back into the ABA being done with students. Can you tell that I really like this system?

For those not already familiar with it, you can read more about the VB-MAPP on Mark's site ([|http://marksundberg.com/vb- mapp.htm]). Briefly, it includes five components: 1) A milestones assessment, covering the verbal operants, as well as other repertoires; 2) a barriers assessment, designed to identify common roadblocks to learning that require intervention; 3) a transition assessment, which can help in deciding on the best learning environment for the student; 4) a task analysis, which fleshes out the milestones into component skills; and 5) the placement piece, which gives further direction to the outcome of the other four components. This means that doing a VB-MAPP gives you info about where the student is developmentally, what common problems may be impeding teaching and learning, a fine-grain analysis of goals and objectives across skill repertoires, an idea of the most appropriate placement for teaching these things, and guidelines for designing individualized intervention. Another thing I really like about it is that it's based on the language of typically-developing kids from 0-48 months, denoting when skills are emitted, which embeds the developmental sequence into the assessment and curriculum design, making it less likely that students will be working on inappropriate skills, splinter skills, etc.

I could go on about this for quite a while, but hopefully this will be enough to prompt people to check it out for themselves. Better yet, hear it from the horse's mouth: I know Mark's doing a number of these presentations to introduce the VB-MAPP, and highly recommend you go. I have no doubt that it's going to become an indispensable part of a good ABA program, as it should, and the sooner folks learn about it, the better off our students will be. As always, I have no financial interest in this, but just wanted to share my opinion.

Best, Christina ______________________________ ___ Christina Burk, M.A. Consulting Behavior Analyst [|www.ChristinaBurkABA.com] 1 (866) 538-2575