Reassessment as an ongoing process

An important view represented here is that assessment and intervention should be interactive processes in which each informs the other. In the United States, reassessments are written into state and federal laws in order to prevent children from being assigned to special classes or programmes and then forgotten, never to make a transition to a more appropriate or less restrictive environment.

However, reevaluation can have another meaning that is more functional and potentially even more critical for the overall growth and development of children. Reevaluation can serve as a time to reflect on the effect of the intervention. Every intervention provides some of the information that is needed to create a new, and more differentiated intervention. The metaphor that may be most powerful here is that of a moving target and of successive approximations to that target. Children's development is a moving target of skills, knowledge, experiences, dispositions, and personality variables. Every intervention alters the child in some way - sometimes for the better, as when the child breaks through to a new skill, and sometimes for the worse, as when the child's motivation to learn is diminished by continuing experiences of failure and frustration. Reevaluation on a continuing basis is essential if parents and professionals are to understand what they should try to do next with the child. Information about the child's prior history is useful but quickly loses its power and relevance with very young children. Constant infusions of new assessment information, acquired in the process of intervention, are essential to maximize the relationship between the child, the child's family, and professionals.