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.