Assessments of intellectually gifted students with(out) characteristic(s) of ASD: An explorative evaluation among diagnosticians in various psycho-educational organisations.

Abstract

Recently, Burger-Veltmeijer, Minnaert & Van den Bosch (2014) constructed a conceptual framework, called the Strengths and Weaknesses Heuristic (S&W Heuristic) which might provide systematicity and coherence in research as well as psycho-educational praxis, regarding assessments of Intellectually Gifted (IG) students with (suspicion of) Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In this contribution it was evaluated whether assessments in psycho-educational practice were consistent with the theoretical principles of the S&W Heuristic. The results indicated the possibility of missed signals of ASD-characteristics among IG-students as well as a trend that a rather large number of the assessments of IG students with(out) characteristics of ASD might not be arranged in a systematic dimensional needs-based way, according to the basic principles of the S&W Heuristic. These findings suggest either the necessity of optimisation of assessments trajectories in psycho-educational practice, or the necessity of optimisation of the S&W Heuristic itself. Evaluación de alumnos de altas capacidades intelectuales con o sin característics de TEA: una exploración entre diagnosticadores de diversas organizaciones psicoeducativas Resumen Recientemente Burger-Veltmeyer, Minnaert y Van der Bosch (2014) han desarrollado un marco conceptual denominado Heurístico de Fuerzas y Debilidades (Heurístico S&W) para poder facilitar la sistematización y la coherencia en la investigación así como en la práctica psico-educativa, refiriéndose a pruebas de evaluación en estudiantes con Dotes de superdota-ción intelectual (I.G.) y con (sospecha de) Espectro de Trastorno Autista. En este aporte eva-luaron si las pruebas de evaluación en la práctica psico-educativa resultaron consistentes con los principios teóricos del Heurístico S&W. Los resultados mostraron la posibilidad de pérdi-das de señales de ASD características en estudiantes IG así como una tendencia de que gran parte de las pruebas de evaluación en estudiantes IG con (o sin) características de ASD no se calificara de una manera sistemática, dimensional y basada en necesidades acorde con los principios básicos del Heurístico S&W. Estas comprobaciones sugieren la necesidad de opti-mización de la ruta de pruebas de evaluación en la práctica psico-educativa o la necesidad de optimización del Heurístico S&W en sí mismo. Palabras Clave: necesidad específica de diagnosis, superdotación, autismo, doble excepcio-nalidad, diagnosis dimensional.

Intellectually gifted students with possible characteristics of ASD: a multiple case study of psycho-educational assessment practices

“…The evaluation stage contains information on how or when the effects of the recommended interventions might be evaluated. Burger-Veltmeijer, Minnaert, and Van den Bosch (2014, 2015 theorised that bias in needs based assessments of students with (suspicion of) IG + ASD might be reduced if assessments focus explicitly on the identification of both Strengths and Weaknesses in a systematic way throughout the whole assessment process: i.e. from intake stage, through strategy stage and investigation stage, to indication stage and, finally, advice stage.…”

“…from intake stage, through strategy stage and investigation stage, to indication stage and, finally, advice stage. Biased assessment strategies might be reduced if alternative hypotheses and investigation questions are constructed by means of a systematic translation of intake data, that is Strengths as well as Weaknesses (Burger-Veltmeijer, Minnaert, and Van den Bosch 2015). This takes place in the strategy stage.…”

“…The objective of this study is the continuation of the validation process of the S&W Heuristic, as initialised by Burger-Veltmeijer, Minnaert, and Van den Bosch (2015), by means of an in-depth multiple case study of assessment practices concerning IG-students with(out) characteristics of ASD. The core question is whether the S&W Heuristic is of added value to diminish bias and increase systematicity.…”

“…It might provide systematicity and coherence in both psycho-educational research and praxis, regarding assessments of students with (suspicion of ) IG + ASD. Subsequently, it was evaluated whether assessments in psycho-educational practice were consistent with the theoretical principles of the S&W Heuristic (Burger-Veltmeijer, Minnaert, and Van den Bosch 2015), by means of a broad analysis of 36 assessment-dossiers of Dutch IG students (WISC-III-Nl 1 Full-Scale IQ (FSIQ) ≥ 130). The results indicated the following: (1) The possibility of missed signals of ASD-characteristics among intellectually gifted students, which might indicate biased assessment performances.…”

“…Some core concepts will be elaborated hereafter in a nutshell. Interested readers can read more in the original publications of Burger-Veltmeijer, Minnaert, and Van den Bosch (2014, 2015, which are available on the internet.…”