School readiness in children with special educational needs and disabilities: Psychometric findings from a new screening tool, the Brief Early Skills, and Support Index

Abstract

The BESSI appears to be a useful tool in screening children for more detailed assessment of SEND.

Can holistic school readiness evaluations predict academic achievement and special educational needs status? Evidence from the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile

“…The positive predictive value was, however, much lower, with only around 36% of children not reaching a good level of development requiring support for SEN. Such findings are broadly in line with Hughes et al (2018), who examined whether the Brief Early Skills and Support Index could identify children with SEN. Thus, whilst both evaluations successfully detect most children who will require SEN support, they do appear to overidentify the number of children at risk.…”

“…It would, however, be beneficial to examine whether school readiness measures can identify children with SEN more generally (as opposed to specific developmental disorders or difficulties). To the best of our knowledge, only one study to date has examined this thus far (Hughes et al, 2018). In this study, it was found that a teacher-rated evaluation of school readiness (the Brief Early Skills and Support Index), which assesses a variety of abilities at school entry such as 'daily living skills' and 'language and cognition' could correctly classify whether children had SEN.…”

“…An important and novel question that has not yet been examined in the literature is whether holistic school readiness evaluations are equally predictive of later academic achievement in children with and without special educational needs (SEN) (Janus, 2011). Evidence that holistic school readiness evaluations can be used to identify at risk children would be promising, as there is an urgent need to identify SEN at an earlier timepoint (Hughes et al, 2018). This is challenging, as the term 'SEN' covers a wide range of difficulties (e.g.…”

Using a “child's‐eye view” of social success to understand the importance of school readiness at the transition to formal schooling

“…The BESSI is a validated questionnaire developed by Hughes et al (2015) for teachers to determine how well a child is transitioning into school. The questionnaire has good test-retest reliability, established longitudinal measurement invariance (Hughes, White, Foley, & Devine, 2018) and is sensitive to special educational needs status (Hughes, Foley, White, & Devine, 2017). Alongside three child-related subscales (behavioural adjustment, language and cognition, and daily living skills), the questionnaire includes a family support subscale, indicating the degree to which children receive support for their education from their home/family life.…”

How the Psychology of Education Contributes to Research With a Social Impact on the Education of Students With Special Needs: The Case of Successful Educational Actions

“…Instrumental learning, especially in regards to difficulties in reading and literacy, is one of the main concerns of research on the psychology of education (Lloyd et al, 2009;Alanazi, 2017;Alenizi, 2019;Auphan et al, 2019;Hughes et al, 2018). Numerous programs for improving reading and/or reading difficulty prevention have emerged from research on reading and literacy from the perspective of the psychology of education, and their impact on improving children's learning has been analyzed (Vellutino and Scanlon, 2002;Papadopoulos et al, 2004;Hatcher et al, 2006).…”