Overview
The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills – Revised (ABLLS-R; Partington, 2006) is a criterion-referenced instrument used to assess the language, academic, self-help, and motor skills of children birth to 12 years. It is based on observation of a child’s skills, and it provides a task analysis of skills, breaking each skill down to the separate components. The ABLLS-R is designed to be completed by observation of skills, but it can be supplemented by interviewing caregivers to complete sections for which observation of skills may be difficult. Because the ABLLS-R is a criterion-referenced measure and not a norm-referenced measure, the child is compared to a set of skills rather than to other children of the same age or grade. No standard scores are derived, but criterion-referenced scores can be used to develop an individualized curriculum with concrete, actionable educational objectives. The end result is a hierarchy of skills to teach that are tailored to the unique needs of the student. The ABLLS-R may be re-administered after 6 to 12 months in order to measure progress and develop additional skills to teach. The test kit also includes an individualized education plan (IEP) development guide.
Summary
Age: Birth- 12 years
Time to Administer: Depends on child skill level and examiner’s familiarity with child
Method of Administration: Individually administered, criterion-referenced assessment, curriculum guide, and skills tracking system for use with children with autism and other developmental disabilities who have deficiencies in language, academic, self-help, and motor skills
Subscales: 25 categories of behavior across a range of skill sets (544 tasks): Basic Learner Skills Assessment (381), Academic Skills Assessment (63), Self-Help Skills Assessment (42), and Motor Skills Assessment (58)
Autism Related Research
Usry, Partington, & Partington (2018)
Age Range: Case study/ expert panel-based study of 8-year-old child with ASD
Sample Size: 11 experts on two separate panels: (1) content validity, and (2) inter-rater reliability
Topics Addressed:
Psychometrics of the ABLLS-R for use in ASD
Outcome:Usry, Partington, & Partington (2018)
Results demonstrated evidence of content validity as at least five out of six expert panel members rated 441 out of the 544 ABLLS-R items (or 81% of the items in the assessment) as “essential.” Results also provided evidence of excellent inter-rater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = .95, p < .001) across the ABLLS-R scores obtained from a second panel of expert raters.
Conclusion: supports strong psychometric properties of the ABLLS-R (content validity and inter-rater reliability).
Malkin, Dixon, Speelman, & Luke (2017)
Age Range: 4-8 years
Sample Size: 21
Topics Addressed:
Relationships between ABLLS-R, PEAK-DT, and Vineland-II for children with autism
Outcome:Malkin, Dixon, Speelman, & Luke (2017)
Results indicate a significant correlation between scores on the PEAK-DT and ABLLS-R (r = 0.951, p < 0.001, PEAK-DT and Vineland-II (r = 0.453, p < .05), as well as the ABLLS-R and Vineland -II (r = 0.563, p < 0.05). The results did not indicate any ceiling effects amongst any of the assessments.
Conclusion: this study provided confidence in validity of the assessment measures.