Curriculum-based assessment

The curriculum supplies a sequence

A curriculum organizes skills into domains, levels, prerequisites, or learning steps. The assessment samples performance against that structure. It may examine communication, play, daily living, learning readiness, social participation, vocational activity, or another defined area.

The result often looks like a profile of demonstrated, emerging, supported, and untested skills. That profile helps a team decide where direct observation or teaching design should go next.

Criterion-referenced differs from norm-referenced

Many curriculum-based tools are criterion-referenced. Performance is compared with specified skills or mastery criteria rather than with a normative sample. A norm-referenced tool answers a different question about comparison with a reference group.

Neither format is universally superior. Select an instrument whose purpose, population, administration, and interpretation fit the referral question. A criterion list cannot substitute for a diagnostic evaluation, and a norm score cannot choose a meaningful goal by itself.

Administration quality affects the profile

Before assessment, define:

• the referral question and person-selected priorities
• relevant domains and excluded domains
• administration, prompting, and scoring rules
• communication forms, accessibility, and ordinary supports
• who may administer and interpret the tool
• direct observation and informant evidence needed
• health, sensory, motor, cultural, language, and setting considerations
• rules for “not observed,” “not applicable,” refusal, and interrupted trials

Record actual conditions. Scoring an AAC response as incorrect because the tool was presented only through speech measures access failure rather than the intended skill.

Avoid teaching every blank box

A curriculum can contain hundreds of items. Missing items may carry little value for a person’s current life. Goal selection should consider preference, autonomy, communication, safety, participation, family priorities, developmental context, feasibility, and opportunity cost.

The BACB Test Content Outline covers skills assessment, client-informed goals, intervention selection, generalization, and maintenance as examination content. It supplies no universal curriculum or required sequence.

A fictional transit example

Marco wants to ride a familiar bus route with less partner help. A team builds a 14-item, task-specific curriculum covering route selection, fare access, stop identification, help messages, and safe exit. This local curriculum is a planning tool rather than a standardized instrument.

With ordinary supports and AAC available, Marco demonstrates 8 items independently, 3 with a defined prompt, and 1 only in role-play. Two items receive “not observed” because the relevant event never occurs. Independent demonstration is 8 of 12 observed items, or 66.7%. Reporting 8 of 14 would answer a different question about the full curriculum.

Marco chooses help messaging and stop identification as priorities. The profile creates possible teaching targets and further observation needs. It supplies no diagnosis or fixed dose.

Use multiple sources for important decisions

Combine curriculum performance with client interview, caregiver or stakeholder input, direct observation, health and communication information, ecological assessment, and relevant professional evaluation. Skills demonstrated in a quiet assessment may look different in a crowded community setting.

Ask whether a low score reflects absent learning, unclear instruction, unfamiliar materials, motor demand, language mismatch, sensory conditions, fatigue, missing reinforcement, or a task the person declines. Preserve uncertainty.

Score supports separately from skill

Decide in advance which prompts and ordinary accommodations preserve the intended construct. A visual schedule, mobility aid, AAC system, or familiar response form may be part of normal access. A teaching prompt added to obtain the answer serves a different role. Record both without treating every support as dependence.

Sample items across the domain rather than stopping after easy successes or memorable errors. When fatigue or withdrawal ends the session, keep untested items marked as untested. A zero would falsely imply that the skill was assessed.

Reassessment should track useful change

Repeat the same administration rules when comparability matters. Also measure performance in real settings, maintenance after teaching, generalization across relevant examples, prompt dependence, burden, and the person’s view of the result.

Separate taught items from untrained probes. A higher curriculum score after direct teaching shows change on sampled items and says little about untaught domains unless those were measured.

Keep communication and assent available

ASHA’s AAC portal describes multimodal communication and states that AAC users should always have access to their tools or devices. Build response options around effective forms.

Explain the activity accessibly, obtain required consent and assent when applicable, honor pauses and withdrawal, and avoid linking worth or service access to a score. The current BACB Ethics Code addresses competence, collaboration, understandable communication, client involvement, assessment, consent, assent when applicable, risk, documentation, and evaluation for covered professionals.