Augmenting Traditional Assessment and Information

Abstract

Traditional quantitative approaches to assessment convey limited descriptions of children. Although norms and numbers do provide valuable information about children, they are static representations and cannot present the whole picture. In contrast, video assessment is a powerful approach that captures the dynamics of movement, bodily expression, and emotion, and thus it can provide an accurate and richly detailed depiction of a child's abilities and development. Video assessment seems to be an appropriate component of portfolio approaches to the assessment of young children. This article briefly reviews the literature on the use and effectiveness of video assessment in educational and clinical settings. It then describes how the Videoshare model takes advantage of the capacity of video records to provide graphically descriptive records that can serve as a valuable supplement to traditional assessment measures and sources of information. Finally, the article reports the results of surveys that evaluated families', teachers', and other Child Study Team members' satisfaction with video assessment.