Psychopedagogical Assessment of Learning Difficulties in Early Childhood

Psychopedagogical Assessment and Its Effect on Educational Decisions

The psychopedagogical assessment, with a meaningful focus, evaluates the impact of general measures and attention to diversity, as well as the specific measures applied to each student. Its purpose is to support educational decision-making, adjusting the measures to the diversity of students and their needs.

Who Needs a Psychopedagogical Assessment?

Pupils or students at risk of exclusion, or those presenting special educational needs, require psychopedagogical intervention. The psychopedagogue coordinates all the information obtained and/or extracted from the agents involved (teaching staff, subject teachers, tutors). When general measures prove insufficient, a project is developed to continue the process.

Characteristics of Psychopedagogical Assessment

The assessment is coherent, procedural, planned, integrative, contextualized, exhaustive, participatory, multidisciplinary, and provides a transfer of the level of concretion to classroom programming.

Decisions Taken in Classroom Programming

Decisions regarding each of the elements of programming:

• The educational staff designs the objectives they will work towards.
• The student has learning opportunities in the content they are going to address, in a single lesson, to achieve the goal, without very specific didactic objectives, identifying situations where the student can develop expressive learning.
• As expressive teaching objectives, measures are taken to promote integrative education, opening the objectives to the particularities of each classroom cycle.
• The minimum objectives of each cycle are clearly defined.
• The teaching objectives are defined in a restrictive manner, indicating what affects the terminal objectives of the cycle.

Curriculum Adaptation (ACI): Non-Significant

Aimed at students with special educational needs, difficulties in integrating with learning, or other disabilities. Adaptations involve modifications to:

• Elements of access to the curriculum (human resources organization, distribution of spaces, available resources, teaching resources, student timetables and groupings).
• Core curriculum elements: methodological adaptation, adaptation of the type of sports activities, and adaptation in evaluation.

Significant Curriculum Adaptation (ACI): Individual Educational

These adaptations involve modifications to the prescriptive elements of the curriculum for the cycle or stage, aimed at giving students the opportunity to develop skills not acquired in previous cycles or stages. General objectives are concretized for each cycle stage, and may even include objectives from a previous cycle.

When the classroom curriculum cannot be adequately addressed, it is modified in elements such as: objectives (in some areas), content, methodology, sports activities, school organization, resources, evaluation criteria, and promotion criteria.

Those involved include: the teaching staff, the team, the tutor-student mentoring coordinator, specialist teacher support, and the professional educational support team.

Characteristics of Attention to Diversity

The type of decisions taken depends on what the adaptation seeks. These are decisions regarding the identification and educational assessment of the needs of special-needs students, such as determining pedagogical aid and assessing students. They explain changes in the organizational structure (timetable, grouping, spaces, etc.), taking into account the needs of students. They must include the type of resources the school needs for an agile organization. They favor the realization of curricular adaptations, promote student participation and the family, and the school's relationship with other institutions. They also promote the school's relationship with external organizations (e.g., a sports center).

When a Child Fails Academically

When a child fails academically, it is essential to resolve the learning difficulty and its origin. Early diagnosis is very important, since the earlier it is suspected that something is not working, the easier it will be to resolve it. Questionnaires for students can be used for this, such as the Gofman index, if the following variables are met, to detect learning difficulties:

Pre-natal, Natal and Developmental Factors

• Heredity: learning disorders occur mainly in males.
• Family history of reading, writing and language disorders.
• Pregnancy: the mother may have suffered some type of pain or infection during pregnancy.
• Prenatal complications.
• Neonatal difficulties (difficulty sucking, excessive sleepiness, apathy, irritability, hypotonia).
• Language and motor development difficulties.
• Accidents that could cause harm or injury (even in newborns up to 3 years), including serious viruses.
• Hyperkinetic syndrome: attention deficit disorder that can lead to hyperactivity and impulsivity.
• Chronic illnesses or disabilities, which increase the possibility of learning difficulties.
• Unrecognized seizures (not necessarily fits).
• Cultural factors.
• Disturbed family environment.

Further Analysis

In addition to the Gofman index, a separate analysis is opened to detect the first exhaustive difficulty. The child's environment should be analyzed, including: psychomotor development, cognitive development, somatic (health) development, perceptual development, personal and affective development (character, behavior), and environmental and family factors.

Further exhaustive analysis may be carried out in the institutionalized environment (nursery, educational center, material resources, and the teacher-student relationship; the teacher must attend to students adequately).

The sociological perspective is also an important point for analysis: whether the child is part of a group, whether they are integrated into society, and the classroom relationships. If the center favors instructional techniques and teacher support, this is positive.

All exhaustive analysis is complementary to the child and should always be carried out with the participation of specialists.

Other factors that may help detect learning difficulties early include observing some problems that children present every day. Through this observation, we can anticipate learning difficulties. This analysis is best done by specialized professionals, not only by the teacher limited to the Gofman index. Tutors should observe the problems children present every day; if we are good observers, we can detect learning difficulties.

These Indicators Are Developed Across Five Areas Where We Observe Student Behavior

Indicators:

Interaction: how the student interacts in the classroom. If the student always or almost always seeks attention from others:

• Refuses to accept help from others.
• Refuses to comply with the instructions of others.
• Plays alone (because they do not want to or are not accepted).
• Does not play with other children.
• Gets upset with violence.

Communication: if the child never or rarely asks questions, or is uninterested.

• If never or rarely responds to questions.
• If never or rarely uses structured grammatical language.
• If never or rarely follows instructions.

Motor: if the child walks on tiptoe.

• If the child walks or runs strangely (e.g., walking on tiptoe).
• When handedness is interchanged when using the pencil (this is usually defined by around 3 years of age).
• If the child has difficulties with fine motor control.
• If the child has poor balance (possible hearing or neurological problems, or vitamin deficiency).
• If the child does not use body parts correctly (e.g., unable to sit cross-legged).

Sensory Domain: if the child continually cannot see clearly.

• If the child continually squints.
• If the child does not hear well and stops covering their ears (because they do not want to play with others).
• Strange voice tone or unusual sounds, such as speaking very softly as if covering the mouth and nose.

General Health: if the child is sleepy (an important sign, especially if they are watching TV or playing late).

• If the child is obese or excessively thin: serious problems such as endocrine disorders, or medication side effects (e.g., corticosteroids), among others.
• Excessive thinness at an early age may be a problem such as anorexia or bulimia, which can be caused by parental pressure.
• Frequent colds or persistent ones (due to lack of immunity).
• If the child is physically weak compared to others.
• If the child is frequently irritated.

Warning Signs in Early Childhood Education That May Lead to Learning Difficulties

Language: pronunciation problems, unintelligible speech.

• Difficulty understanding simple instructions.
• Difficulty understanding questions.
• Slow development in acquiring words and phrases.
• Difficulty expressing needs through oral language.
• Difficulty rhyming words.
• Lack of interest in telling stories or accounts.

Motor: motor clumsiness in gross motor skills (such as running and jumping).

• Poor balance.
• Clumsiness in handling small objects (such as buttoning clothes or tying shoelaces).
• Avoidance of sports and drawing activities.

Cognitive Development: problems memorizing the days of the week, alphabetical order, etc.

• Problems remembering routine sports activities.
• Difficulties with the notions of cause and effect, counting, and sequencing.
• Difficulties with basic concepts (such as size, shape, and color).

Attention: high distractibility, difficulty maintaining focus on one task, excessive hyperactivity and impulsivity.

Social Ability: problems with interaction, playing alone.

• Abrupt mood changes.
• Easily frustrated.
• Frequent tantrums.
• Constant repetition of words or actions, and difficulty changing activity.