Aspects and impact of the VB-MAPP intraverbal assessment on teaching children with autism

Abstract

The primary goal of the action plan for preparedness to implement the Law on the amendment and appendment of the Law on Education No. I-1489 in 2021-2024 in Lithuania – the obligatory removal of physical, emotional, informational, and social barriers from school settings and ensurance of quality education for each child through learning with their peers at the nearest educational institution, providing the necessary assistance to meet individual educational needs of each child (e-seimas.lrs.lt. (n.d.)). However, the research (for example, Raudeliūnaitė and Steponėnienė, 2020) shows that teachers face different challenges in ensuring inclusive education for children with special needs. The latest empirically validated methods, assessments, and curricula, dedicated to the specific needs of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), are missing (Raudeliūnaitė and Steponėnienė, 2020). According to the International Classification of Diseases (IDC-10-AM), the main areas of issues that children with ASD are facing are social communication and related language issues, limited and repetitive interests, and behaviors (ebook.vlk.lt, n.d.). A strong emphasis should be put on early intervention in order to reduce these challenges. The professionals lack valid instruments in the Lithuanian language dedicated to assessing the social communication and language skills of children with ASD functionally. „The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program: VB-MAPP “is implemented for this purpose by English-speaking countries and in the translations into other eight languages (Sundberg, 2014). As of 2020 this assessment has become available in the Lithuanian language (Sundberg, 2020). An essential supplement of the VB-MAPP is the Intraverbal Assessment Subtest. Intraverbal is a type of language when a child verbally responds to the verbal behavior of others, it involves talking about things that are not present at that moment (Sundberg, 2020). The aim of this Subtest is to identify a child’s approximate level of intraverbal response so he or she could be placed in the intraverbal teaching program with a level that is the most appropriate for the child. There are eight groups of intraverbal items on this Subtest. Each group contains ten items, a total of 80 items (Sundberg, 2014). Typically, the emergence of basic intraverbal repertoire in children can be observed at two years of age, and it starts to get more complex around three to four years of age (Sundberg, 2020). A high number of children with ASD and other language delays fail to learn a functional intraverbal repertoire due to their social communication and language developmental specifics. That is why it is crucial to assess the current status of a child’s intraverbal repertoire and set functional teaching and learning goals in their next proximate developmental zone. In order to check the reliability of the Lithuanian version of the Intraverbal Assessment Subtest, the data of 30 children in the age range from 3 to 8 years, with the diagnosis of ASD were collected and quantified using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The Cronbach‘s alpha based on all ten items’ groups reached the value of 0.985. It allows us to conclude that removing any aspect of the assessment would not increase the Cronbach's alpha (internal consistency of the questionnaire), so there is no need to remove anything from the adapted Lithuanian Intraverbal Assessment Subtest. This article will describe the importance of intraverbal repertoire assessment using the Intraverbal Assessment Subtest and represent the reliability values of scores of items in each group out of ten of the Lithuanian versions of the Subtest.