Dynamic testing of learning potential of children with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities: A Delphi study

Education of children with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities requires adequate assessment of their educational needs and potential to learn. Dynamic testing using analogical reasoning tasks may be a promising way to perform such an assessment. However, it remains unclear how dynamic testing with these children may be done in practice. Therefore, we sought expert opinions on operationalizing learning potential and dynamic testing. We performed a three-round online Delphi study (N = 37) with experts in psychological educational assessment of children with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities in special schools and specialized day-care centres in the Netherlands. Consensus was found on a conceptual and an operational definition of learning potential, describing step-by-step how learning potential could be measured in daily practice. This included a pre-test, training, post-test design with the inclusion of a graduated prompts protocol for mediation and an observation checklist focussing on response to mediation. Based on examples from the Analogical Reasoning Learning Test, we assessed consensus on adapted design requirements for dynamic testing using analogical reasoning. Experts agreed that dynamic testing using analogical reasoning tasks might be suitable for children with moderate intellectual disabilities. A key concern was whether performance on analogical reasoning task was within reach of children with severe intellectual disabilities. The panel recommended research into the type of mediation needed to support the learning of analogical reasoning tasks. Further development and evaluation of dynamic testing for children with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities may build on the recommendations of this panel of experts.