With a Different Glance: Dynamic Assesment of Functioning of Children at Development & Inclusive Learning

Despite international developments towards inclusion, many children are excluded and deprived of adequate education, because of an impairment and or functional difficulties: there is not enough support, teachers lack knowledge how to include different children, and assessment reports are rarely suitable for inclusive teaching.

Current functional assessment is too much deficiency oriented and tends to 'blame' the child. If schools have to become 'inclusive schools for all', as is laid down in the UN Convention on the Rights of People with disabilities, then the assessment & coaching system needs a thorough reform.

This book wants to propose some alternatives: next to finding out about a child's functional difficulties, assessment methods also need to look at a child's learning potential, responsiveness to teaching, and learning context (teachers, parents). The objective of assessment should be to adequately plan and monitor a challenging educational intervention, allowing the child to be maximally included.

Models of 'good practice' have been collected within the context of the European Comenius DAFFODIL project.

The book wants to make school psychologists and other assessors of special needs, aware of the need and possibility to look at children with a different glance: in a more inclusion-oriented and development-oriented way.