Practitioner's Guide to Dynamic Assessment

Dynamic assessment is a recently developed, interactive approach to psychoeducational assessment that follows a test-intervene-retest format, focuses on learning processes and modifiability, and provides the possibility of direct linkage between assessment and intervention.
The second book on the topic by Dr. Lidz, this volume is a hands-on guide that is designed specifically for practitioners who engage in diagnostic assessment related to the functioning of children in school. It reviews and critiques current models of dynamic assessment and presents the research available on these existing models. But primarily, this is a text to help practitioners carry out an actual dynamic assessment procedure.
The book includes two comprehensive manuals, each providing theoretical background, descriptions of procedures, forms, and reviews of available research. The first manual describes the Mediated Learning Experience Rating Scale. This scale adapts Feuerstein's concept of MLE, postulated to describe adult activities within an adult-child interaction that facilitate the child's cognitive development. The scale is useful for assessment and consultation with both parents and teachers and, in addition, it also describes the behavior of the assessor during the course of dynamic assessment.
The second manual describes the author's model for dynamic assessment. This model rests on a theory of neuropsychological foundations of mental processing as developed by Luria and elaborated by Naglieri and Das. The model preserves the test-intervene-retest format, focuses on learner modifiability and, most significantly, links the assessment with educational interventions.
Detailing the implementation of an actual dynamic assessment procedure that is linked with educational interventions, this book is a valuable guide for diagnostic assessors from a wide variety of backgrounds including school, clinical, and counseling psychology, as well as special and regular education and speech and language pathology. PRACTITIONER'S GUIDE TO DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT also serves as a text for advanced graduate courses in assessment.

Carol S. Lidz, Touro College School of Psychiatry, Empire State Building N.Y.