Out-of-Level Cognitive Testing of Children with Special Educational Needs

Abstract. Children with special educational needs in the area of learning (SEN-L) have severe learning disabilities and often exhibit substantial cognitive impairments. Therefore, standard assessment instruments of basic cognitive abilities designed for regular school children are frequently too complex for them and, thus, unable to provide reliable proficiency estimates. The present study evaluated whether out-of-level testing with the German version of the Cognitive Abilities Test using test versions developed for younger age groups might suit the needs of these children. Therefore, N = 511 children with SEN-L and N = 573 low achieving children without SEN-L attending fifth grades in Germany were administered four tests measuring reasoning and verbal comprehension that were designed for fourth graders. The results showed that children with SEN-L exhibited significantly more missing responses than children without SEN-L. Moreover, three of the four tests were still too difficult for them. Importantly, no substantial differential response functioning was found for children with and without SEN-L. Thus, out-of-level testing might represent a feasible strategy to assess basic cognitive functioning in children with SEN-L. However, comparative interpretations would require additional norms or linked test versions that place results from out-of-level tests on a common metric.