Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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Exploring Narrative Assessment to Promote Empowerment of
Educators and Parents of Children with Special Educational Needs

Professor Joy Cullen
 Denise Williamson and Chris Lepper
Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
J.L.Cullen@massey.ac.nz

Abstract

The use of narrative assessment by early intervention teams is explored in two case studies in New Zealand where early intervention provisions are guided by an inclusive special education policy. Team members, including parents and teachers, received professional development on the use of learning story assessment, and shared their learning stories at planning meetings.   The project highlighted the empowerment of parents and educators through the use of learning stories for assessment and planning. Challenges to the adoption of narrative methodologies in inclusive early intervention contexts are identified.

Background

This paper reports on a project that introduced narrative assessment to early intervention teams with the aim of developing more effective collaborative assessment. The project is situated alongside an inclusive special education policy that guides early intervention services.

In New Zealand, young children with special educational needs are educated in early childhood centres with support provided by early intervention (EI) teams. EI teams may include itinerant hospital-based therapists and psychologists, itinerant education-based early intervention teachers, speech-language therapists, psychologists, sensory resource teachers, and (for children with high needs) an education support worker who works with the child in the early childhood setting. EI educational provisions are regulated by the inclusive special education policy and early childhood teachers are expected to take a key role in planning for children. An ecological approach guides

early intervention services and partnerships with families are emphasised (Carroll-Lind & Cullen, 2003). The national early childhood curriculum, Te Whaariki, (Ministry of Education, 1996) is “designed to be inclusive and appropriate for all children” (p. 11). Te Whaariki is underpinned by sociocultural and ecological theories that acknowledge and build on children’s learning in specific social and cultural context – homes, communities and centres. In accordance with Te Whaariki, the regulations that govern funding to early childhood centres require teachers to implement curriculum and assessment practices that support children as competent learners, reflect a holistic view of learning and acknowledge the reciprocal relationships between children, adults and the learning environment, including parents/guardians. From this positive perspective, teachers should, philosophically, be well placed to implement the inclusive special education policy in the early childhood sector.  

The inclusive Special Education 2000 policy (now Special Education policy) was implemented by the Ministry of Education in the late 1990s and several research contracts were implemented to monitor and evaluate the policy. Two of these involved early intervention provisions in the non-compulsory early childhood sector (Cullen & Bevan-Brown, 1999; Bourke et al, 2002). These projects involved a range of procedures over a four-year period: interviews with parents and teachers of children receiving early intervention services, national surveys of early childhood teachers, and interviews with early childhood teachers, early childhood service representatives, and early intervention professionals.

Assessment Tensions

Survey and interview responses from early intervention professionals, early childhood teachers and parents of children receiving early intervention services highlighted several conflicting pressures on teachers with regard to assessment practices. These include:

• early intervention professionals’ belief that early childhood teachers require child development knowledge to identify and work with children who have special needs, versus a move away from a developmental philosophy to a sociocultural perspective, promoted by Te Whaariki, the New Zealand early childhood education curriculum;
  
• individual plans that incorporate specific skills-based objectives based on decontextualised specialist assessment, versus an interests-based early childhood curriculum that builds on narrative assessment in natural settings.

In addition to the two major assessment tensions, the SE 2000 interviews and surveys highlighted:

• teachers’ beliefs that they need additional specialist knowledge to work with children with special needs; despite a curriculum that promotes holistic perspectives on learning and development;

• parents’ beliefs that they do not contribute significantly to individual plans; despite early intervention policy that involves parents in planning;
  
• increasing pressure for culturally sensitive assessment and services; in accordance with a bi-cultural and inclusive curriculum.  
  

Collectively, these findings over the four years of the research suggest that the ecological and inclusionary philosophy that guides early intervention is not easily translated into collaborative assessment practices. Further, the findings of these two reports suggest that an expert model of service delivery (McWilliam, Wolery & Odom, 2001) still characterises early intervention services under the new policy (Cullen, 2002). The influence of specialists on individual plans and on teachers’ views of their role in working with children with special needs have been noted by other researchers. For example, Purdue, Ballard and MacArthur (2001) have highlighted the existence of exclusionary practices in New Zealand’s early childhood centres and Dunn (2002) has argued for the child’s right to be seen in the same way as everyone else and to be included within the centre curriculum, as opposed to working with a separate curriculum devised by the EI team. The SE 2000 monitoring research reported EI professionals’ views that some teachers failed to take responsibility for children with special needs, preferring to leave children to the support worker (Bourke et al, 2002). When this finding is viewed against the assessment tensions that promote a deficit approach to assessment it is perhaps not surprising that teachers do not feel comfortable with EI assessment and planning practices that are inconsistent with their curriculum philosophy and that privilege specialist expertise rather than their educational expertise.

These assessment anomalies reflect approaches to assessment that have informed early childhood teaching, historically and currently. These approaches can be located on a continuum: normative assessment based on child development knowledge; criterion-based assessment, based on specific skill or curriculum objectives; and in the New Zealand context, narrative assessment, as developed in Carr’s (2001) learning story approach. Further, EI professionals may use an array of conventional standardised test and diagnostic tools that reflect their specialist disciplinary fields. Each assessment approach can be seen to relate to different goals for children: normative assessment to promote developmental milestones; criterion-based assessment to remedy specific skill deficits or to meet curriculum content goals; and narrrative assessment to promote children’s interests and positive dispositions towards learning. In turn, these assessment goals imply different views of the learner and contrasting pedagogical practices.   Normative assessment and criterion-based assessment position the child as deficient, in relation to external criteria such as developmental milestones or skills-based curriculum objectives that can be assessed and pre-determined as goals by EI professionals. Early childhood teachers may participate in this assessment process, but in doing so may find their own professional knowledge, based on the holistic principles of Te Whaariki, sidelined.

In contrast, a narrative assessment model starts with a positive image of the young child, as a learner with interests and strengths. Carr’s (2001) learning story approach foregrounds the child’s dispositions to learn, not as static qualities but as dynamic responses to learning opportunities; for example, a disposition to be curious or a disposition to persist. The learning story assessment approach as it has developed in the New Zealand context reflects a sociocultural view, in which assessment is both situated and distributed across people, places and things (Cowie & Carr, 2004). It is concerned with the broad goals and indicative outcomes set out in the strands of Te Whaariki: well-being, belonging, contribution, communication, and exploration; and involves multiple voices of child, peers, teachers, parents and other adults. It views the learner in-action and records and interprets the child’s interactions with others (Carr, 2001). The application of narrative assessment for early intervention purposes, therefore, exemplifies the trend towards authentic assessment in early childhood intervention (Neisworth & Bagnato, 2004).

A start has been made with the use of learning stories as an assessment tool for young children who have special educational needs by a Special Education psychologist (Dunn, 2000), who worked with teachers. In contrast, this project explored the use of learning story assessment with the whole early intervention team, including parents, teachers, education support workers, special education and health professionals. Secondly, the project extended the use of learning stories to include planning for the children.

The Narrative Assessment Project

The narrative assessment project arose from a desire to work more collaboratively across early childhood education and special education in order to explore assessment procedures that could reduce the skills-interests tension that was evident in the observations and reports of EI assessment practices, in the SE 2000 research.   The project comprised two case studies involving two four-year-old children with high/complex needs who were attending early childhood centres, their teachers, support workers, parents, and special education and health professionals. The research team involved a university early childhood researcher, an early intervention practitioner employed by the Ministry of Education, and a university-based professional development facilitator.   Procedures comprised:

• individual interviews with all participants at the beginning of the project about their assessment practices; their current understanding of the learning story approach;   and   their beliefs about collaborative relationships and their role in the assessment of developmental skills and the teaching and learning environment;
  
• individual professional development sessions about learning story assessment, where participants were encouraged to focus on the child’s interests and strengths as a learner and to write stories through their own parental or professional filter;
  
• writing of learning stories over a three month period, with on-going support from the professional development facilitator, if needed, to ensure adaptability of the approach for early intervention settings;
  
• individual plan (IP) meetings at which learning stories were shared, objectives for the next plan established on the basis of the learning stories, and individual feedback about the IP process obtained;
  
• individual interviews with all participants about their perceptions of assessment and planning practices after involvement in the project.
  

Interview and questionnaire responses were read and reread by the three project team members and emergent themes discussed to establish consensus about interpretations. Each team member initially brought a different perspective to the debate, reflecting her professional role as early childhood researcher, early intervention practitioner, and professional development facilitator. Contrasting interpretations were debated and this process strengthened the conclusions, by constituting a form of triangulation.

Empowering Parents, Teachers and Support Workers

The theme of empowerment permeated many of the comments made by parents, teachers and support workers. Learning story assessment enabled them to contribute on an equal footing with the EI professionals and therefore strengthened their confidence in working with the children.

A mother observed the difference in teacher interactions with her child: “Learning stories have broken down a barrier. The learning stories have helped the teachers know the important part they play in teaching Nellie”. During the period of the project the teacher used the same assessment procedures with Nellie, the child with special needs, as with all children in the centre. As the narrative approach involved documenting her own interactions with the child, she became more aware of her teaching strategies, and started to take more responsibility for the child. She also developed confidence in her educational expertise as a member of the EI team: “It is good to have the specialist having to work with us … different because they have to look at our work (i.e. learning stories) as well as us looking at them”.

EI professionals also commented on the greater involvement of teachers with the children. A speech-language therapist observed, “The stories seemed to help, especially the teaching staff, focus on Nellie’s responses and behaviours” while a

hospital-based specialist referred to learning stories as, “A positive approach that broke down the expert consultant view”.

Education support workers also felt empowered: “Doing learning stories takes the job up a level in terms of responsibility and enjoyment. It’s more fulfilling because you’re contributing in a meaningful ways”. This was evident in the IP meetings where support workers shared their stories which then contributed to further planning for the children. “Previously I would see lots of things and want to share them with the team, but I didn’t write them down so they wouldn’t be shared at the meeting.” A teacher also acknowledged the support worker’s contribution: “We have better communication. We talk about things a lot more and collaborate during sessions”.

The everyday language of the learning stories was significant for one mother:

“If learning stories had been in place at the start then we wouldn’t have been struggling with all the different language they (EI professionals) use”. A hospital-based specialist readily acknowledged the empowerment this approach gave to parents: “I liked the parents’ involvement and hearing what was happening in the home environment … it puts everyone on the same level”.

The Importance of Relationships

The empowerment of parents, teachers and support workers – the team members who did not hold specialist expertise – seemed to build upon changing relationships within the team. A collaborative relationship was a key factor for a teacher who highlighted more holistic outcomes: “An advantage of learning stories is the collaboration between everyone especially for EI team, making them look at a more holistic, broader sense”.    Greater insight into team members’ views and priorities was a key factor for an early intervention teacher: “I felt as though I learnt more about the child but I also got to know more about the person who wrote it (the learning story) and what is important to that person”.

Perhaps most significantly for the goal of including the child into the social fabric of the early childhood setting, was a hospital-based professional’s observation: “To share stories deepens a relationship, i.e. the child’s relationship with other people”. Learning stories recorded children’s interactions with others – peers, teachers, support worker, parents, siblings and EI professionals. Acknowledging interactions, and hence relationships, foregrounds the child as part of a social community (Cowie & Carr, 2004). A teacher’s comment that, “learning stories show children’s interests, but also our teaching”, illustrates how a focus on the child “in context” foregrounds interactions. In contrast, decontextualised skills-based assessment focuses on the individual child and ignores the relationships that play such a pivotal role in the child’s learning and inclusion.

A mother also acknowledged the importance of the child’s relationship with the team members: “They (learning stories) seemed to bring out the actual enjoyment and the relationships they (the rest of the team) have with Joe and that made me feel good … you need more encouragement when you have a special needs child”.

Combining Interests and Skills

A particular interest of the researchers was whether the disparate interests- and skills- based assessment and planning approaches could be harmonised through the use of learning stories. In this regard, EI professionals acknowledged that learning stories allowed for relevant skill objectives to be identified and highlighted contextual information. For example, a hospital-based professional stated: “I did note that once others shared their learning stories they gave opportunity to set more realistic goals involving different disciplines. Goals just surfaced and flowed”.  A speech language therapist commented that she had gained, “far more information about Joe’s language than I could normally pick up and the context in which this communication occurs”. The stories also promoted a positive perspective on the child’s achievements to be promoted. A teacher said, “they are written in a positive light – plays down the deficits”.

In the narrative assessment project, the strong focus on learning dispositions that has been adopted in Carr’s (2001) learning story approach when recording, reviewing and interpreting stories was de-emphasised. The key focus on the child’s interests and strengths as a learner remained and teachers reported that they still reflected about learning dispositions.  This simple modification to the learning story recording format allowed each participant to write stories free of the constraints of educational language.

A challenge to the learning story approach was raised by a hospital-based professional who acknowledged that “they(learning stories) forced me to document the positives” but also considered she needed to know about the child’s limitations – not as deficits but as “constraints” that should be acknowledged when planning. This is a helpful way of viewing the relationship of interests and skills, not as a dichotomy but as one set of factors (skills, limitations) that need to be considered when planning for the child’s interests. An example of the complementary relationship of interests and skills occurred in a learning story that was shared at an IP meeting. Nellie, who was normally seated in a wheelchair, was provided with a “pony” -   supportive walking equipment that would facilitate her movement toward people, places, and things that interested her.

The support worker’s learning story:

While Nellie was on the pony something wonderful happened. Nellie’s activity caught the attention of two other friends. They immediately saw the potential of her being able to play more freely. They asked me if they could take her to the family area, they stood either side of Nellie, held her hands and walked over there. In their game Nellie was a beautiful ladybird, she held her head high. Nellie was turning her head to look at who was talking to her. Nellie’s response made it obvious she was enjoying herself as were her friends. I felt veryhappy forNellie, because at the moment my ‘hands on’ assistance wasn’t needed.

Nellie’s competencies, relationships and inclusion in the game were the focus of the learning story. The story also acknowledged the effectiveness of the supportive walking equipment and Nellie’s skill in attending to and responding to her friends. Several learning stories had highlighted the importance of physical support for Nellie to enable her to participate – through eye contact, eye movements and head turning, the skills through which Nellie was able to persist and play with other children. The IP goals focused on strategies for assisting Nellie physically, with the teacher and support worker responding positively to further suggestions from the early intervention teacher. Nellie’s mother was positive about the IP process: “Due to what’s come out we have put more goals this time, we have seen more”. The team “saw more” because the multiple perspectives of team members were heard and valued.

Processes of Empowerment

The narrative assessment project suggests several propositions about the conditions and experiences that empower educators and parents, arising from the use of learning stories for assessment and planning.

It is proposed that learning stories assessment:

• promotes shared understandings between team members, through the everyday language of the stories;
  
• strengthens   relationships between the child and team members and within teams, through shared understandings;
  
• facilitates the use of collaborative pedagogical strategies and knowledge by teachers and support workers, by valuing educational expertise;
  
• acknowledges and strengthens parents’ understandings and contribution to planning, by valuing parents’ perceptions and home-based experiences;
  
• contextualises EI professionals’ focus on skills, by sharing stories gathered in different places and times and with different people.  

Collectively, these propositions suggest that the use of a narrative assessment approach initiated a move from an expert service delivery model towards a collaborative model in which experts provide support for parents and educators, in accordance with early childhood philosophy and practices. Recent views on the application of a community of practice to professional development in inclusive early intervention (Bussye, Wesley & Able-Boone, 2001) are also reflected in these propositions. A community of practice approach establishes discourse among community members and mechanisms for making decisions and sharing ideas, both of which were aims and outcomes in the narrative assessment project. While these are positive outcomes for the project it must also be acknowledged that movement towards a collaborative EI model is not always straightforward. Anning (2001) has commented on the challenges to professional identity and knowledge that arise when different professional roles are combined in the “joined up” services in the UK.   Similarly, within EI teams that draw upon different disciplinary backgrounds not everyone is ready to acknowledge the implications of collaborative approaches for their role. Following the IP meeting, some EI professionals noted that while learning stories were valuable for parents and teachers, they thought they gained more from their specialist assessment tools for IP planning.  Unless these participants acknowledge the disempowering effects of assessment and planning practices that privilege specialist expertise over educational expertise and parent perceptions, it seems unlikely that parents and educators will be confident that their knowledge and expertise will valued.  

Narrative assessment has considerable potential for strengthening culturally-sensitive assessment and EI services in the increasingly diverse early childhood context. Accordingly, new challenges for narrative assessment may arise as diverse cultural expectations interface with the learning story approach to meet early intervention goals. In particular, narrative methodologies that acknowledge relationships and partnerships are pivotal to Maori research and educational practices (Bishop & Glynn, 1999; Rau & Ritchie, 2004). Working with Maori community meanings is a particular challenge for early intervention services in New Zealand (Cullen & Bevan-Brown, 1999).

The Ministry of Education’s (2004b) Standards for Providers of Early Intervention Services (Early Childhood Sector) include a statement that, “Policies and practices will include … All team members keeping up to date with research in assessment methodology” (p. 12). Further, the Ministry of Education (2004a) has endorsed the learning story approach with the release of Kei Tua o te Pae: Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars. Ministry-funded professional development is planned for teachers, teacher educators and special education personnel during 2005. In combined health and education EI provisions, these moves affect special education personnel employed by the Ministry of Education, but not those (such as a paediatric physiotherapist) who are employed through health services. In this regard, the narrative assessment project has demonstrated the value of providing professional development across the health and education services and highlights the difficulties of implementing an inclusive policy when there are structural barriers to collaborative approaches.    

Acknowledgements

The project team thanks the children and their families, early childhood centres and early intervention staff from the Ministry of Education: Special Education and Mid-Central Health who participated in the project.   Massey University College of Education and The Ministry of Education: Special Education supported the professional development for this project. Denise Williamson was employed by the Ministry of Education: Special Education at the time of the project.

References

Anning, A. (2001).   Knowing who I am and what I know: Developing new versions of professional knowledge in integrated service settings. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference, Leeds, September.

Bishop, R., & Glynn, T. (1999). Culture counts: Changing power relations ineducation. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press.

Bourke, R., Bevan-Brown, J., Carroll-Lind, J., Cullen, J., Kearney, A., Mentis, M., Poskitt, J., Prochnow, J., Ward, A., O’Neill, J., McAlpine, D., Bevan-Brown, W., Grant, S., & Morton, M. (2002). Special Education 2000:Monitoring and evaluation of the policy. Final report to Ministry of Education. IPDER, Massey University, Palmerston North, NZ.

Bussye, V., Wesley, P., & Able-Boone, H. (2001). Innovations in professional development. In M.J. Guralnick (Ed.), Early childhood inclusion: Focus on change (pp. 179-200). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

Carr, M. (2001). Assessment in early childhood settings: Learning stories. London: Paul Chapman.

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Cullen, J. (2002). Discourse, policy and practice: An inclusive approach to early intervention. Delta: Policy and Practice in Education, 54(1&2), 133-148.

Dunn, L. (2000). Using “learning stories” to assess and design programs for young children with special needs in New Zealand. Infants and YoungChildren, 13(2), 73-82.

Dunn, L. (2002). Children with special rights. Early Education, 30 (Spring/Summer), 17-22.

McWilliam, R.A., Wolery, M., & Odom, S.L. (2001). Instructional perspectives in inclusive preschool classrooms. In M.J. Guralnick (Ed.), Early childhood inclusion: Focus on change (pp. 503-527). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.

Ministry of Education (1996). Te Whaariki: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education (2004a). Kei Tua o te Pae: Assessment for learning: Early childhood exemplars. Wellington: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education (2004b). Standards for Providers of Early Intervention Services (Early Childhood Sector). Wellington: Learning Media.

Neisworth, J.T., & Bagnato, S.J. (2004). The mismeasure of young children: The authentic assessment alternative. Infants and Young Children, 17(3), 198-212.

Purdue, K., Ballard, K., & MacArthur, J. (2001). Exclusion and inclusion in New Zealand early childhood education: Disability, discourses and contexts. International Journal of Early Years Education, 9(1), 37-49.

Rau, C., & Ritchie, J. (2004). Partnership in practice: Collaborative research inearly childhood education in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Paper presented at Pacific Early Childhood Research Association Conference, Melbourne, Australia, July.

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