When thinking about the Mastery Test questions and videos, it’s important to remember that the test has moved away from a qualitative analysis to a quantitative analysis, as evidenced by the new rating system.
The goal here is to make the analysis more objective, even though each test taker’s opinion, analysis, and rationalization will play a role. You are no longer expected to determine if a child has “partially mastered” a stage or not. This is for two reasons: you don’t really have enough contextual information to make that determination, and there is no such thing as having “partially mastered” something.
Instead, the new test will ask you to look at the video and determine if a child is exhibiting a developmental milestone, and how much of the time they are exhibiting that milestone. This is still a subjective measure, but it is a judgment that you can make effectively and with consistency. The scale we are using is a 4 point Likert scale.
- Most of the time
- Some of the time
- A little of the time
- None of the time
We are not asking you measure to exact percentages for each of the milestones, but instead to make estimates within the ranges provided. We know this is not an exact measurement system so for certain fthe questions we determined the percentages to be falling between two of the options, then there may to possibly correct answers (either one will give you credit).
Below are some questions you can ask yourself when taking the test. Look for the following in each of the videos when you’re thinking about developmental milestones.
1. Shared Attention (the child’s ability to attend to the activity and the person):
- Are the caregiver and child near each other?
- Is the child paying attention to both the caregiver and the activity/object, or are they only engaged in the activity and ignoring the caregiver?
- Do you think the child would mind if the caregiver walked away?
Do they check in with the caregiver, temporarily focus on them, and then go back to the activity?
2. Engagement (an emotional connection and a child falling in love with the caregiver)
- Is the child more interested in the caregiver than the activity/object (either all the time or periodically)?
- Is there an emotional connection between the child and the caregiver?
- Does the child look at the caregiver?
- Does the child show enjoyment, or other emotional states, with the caregiver?
3. Two-way Purposeful Communication (being purposeful, and opening and closing circles of communication, whether gesturally or vocally):
- Is the child moving towards an object/activity with a sense of purpose, i.e. an understanding of what to do and what they want?
- Is the child responding to the caregiver, i.e. if the caregiver makes a gesture or an overture verbally, does the child respond to them? Or does the child seek out the caregiver and initiate some sort of interaction?
4. Shared Social Problem Solving and Interacting with Continuous Flow:
- Is the child initiating activities/play/interaction with the caregiver?
- Do they come to the caregiver to get their needs met?
- Do they use multiple gestures or interactions to achieve a different goal with the caregiver’s help?
- Do they maintain a rhythm and continuous back and forth with the caregiver?
- Are they continuing the interaction, even if the caregiver hesitates?
5. Meaningful and Symbolic Use of Ideas:
- Is the child expressing themselves symbolically, either verbally or with symbolic representations of things like pictures, sign language, or creative use of toys and objects around the room?
- Is the child verbally or symbolically expressing themselves around achieving a goal or immediate need?
- Is the child expressing themselves in fantasy around pretend play or other creative imagery?
6. Connecting Ideas and Logical thinking:
- Is the child answering Who?, What?, Where?
- Is the child answering why or how questions?
- Is the child linking multiple ideas together?