Present Level of Performance... What Comes After Assessment?

Appropriate special education services begin with an individualized education program that reflects the assessment results of a student with a disability. Those results are summarized in the first section of the individualized education program, known as the "present level of performance." In this section, the student's needs, strengths, interests, and their parents' concerns are reviewed. This section of the individualized education program is the foundation upon which the team relies to determine the goals and services to meet the student's individual needs.

What are the considerations for determining the present level of performance? What aspects should be addressed when writing the present level of performance? What questions does the present level of performance answer? What are the quality indicators for the present level of performance? This is what we will explore in this article.

What are the considerations for determining the present level of performance?

The specialized team must ensure that the present level of performance has been determined based on several elements:

- Results of recent assessments

- The student's strengths (communication via spoken language / pictures / sign language - interaction with peers - recognizing letters and numbers)

- Parents' concerns (Does the program develop my child's communication skills? Will my child become independent in self-care skills? What is the status of the words and sentences my child knows how to write? Will the academic aspect help integrate my child with their peers at school? How do I get my child to interact with their peers?)

- The impact of the disability on the student's participation and progress in the general education curriculum (or participation in age-appropriate activities for preschool children).

- Needs specific to the student's disability, such as the student's needs in the areas of behavior, communication, language, and learning using assistive technology devices and services.

What aspects should be addressed when writing the present level of performance?

Present level of performance recommendations must be presented according to different developmental domains:

- Activities of daily living (such as: personal care, preparing meals, household activities).

- Cognitive skills (such as: attention, memory, problem-solving ability, and language performance).

- Adaptive behavior (such as: the student's interaction with the natural and social situations of their environment, how they make judgments and decisions).

- Expected rate of progress in acquiring skills and information (such as: the pace at which the student learns new information or skills, taking into account factors related to the child's cognitive skill levels, interests, age, and progress rate history).

- Learning style, that is, the optimal way for the student to learn, such as: visual or auditory aids, hands-on approaches, cooperative learning, and repetition.

- Social skills, such as: waiting one's turn, turn-taking, relationships with others.

- Developmental progress: the degree and quality of motor and sensory development, physical skills, or limitations related to the learning process.

- Environmental modifications, such as: classroom routines, visual and auditory distractors, classroom furniture.

The individualized educational plan documents the student's assessment results, the student's performance results on achievement tests (or minimum skills), and their individual needs. The process of assessing student performance requires a great deal of effort and time. Therefore, on the Ynmo platform, we have provided features to assess a wide range of skills through ready-made developmental and academic assessment tools to identify areas of strength and areas of need. Users can also enter the assessment appropriate to their needs.

After finishing the assessment section, you can use the ready-made suggested plan from Ynmo—based on the assessment results—or choose from the goal bank, which contains more than 3,000 goals and skills supported by activities and implementation instructions, fully adjustable to suit your students' varying abilities.

What questions does the present level of performance answer?

The present level of performance answers a set of questions about student performance, such as:

- What are the student's needs resulting from their disability?

- What skills is the student able to perform, and what skills is the student currently unable to perform?

- What are the student's strengths across the various assessment domains?

- How do these needs affect the student's participation and progress in the general curriculum? For preschool students, how is their participation in age-appropriate activities affected? What are the parents' concerns regarding their children's education?

- What forms of educational or behavioral support or services were previously identified as effective or ineffective during the past year?

- What accommodations, program modifications, or supplementary aids and services were previously identified as effective or ineffective during the past year?

- What forms of educational support and services are likely to be supported and used by the student?

What are the quality indicators for the present level of performance?

The quality of determining the present level of performance depends on several indicators that should be taken into account, namely:

- That it is written in clear, easily understood language.

- That it accurately illustrates the results of the assessment process and the results of the tests and tools administered to the student.

- That it accurately links the assessment results to the goals to be included in the individualized education program.

- That it illustrates the extent to which the student is affected in their ability to learn from the general curriculum and participate in curricular and extracurricular activities.

- That it includes a description of the observations of the family and the student themselves regarding the level of performance, type of need, and teaching priorities.

- That it includes information about the post-school transition phase, independent living, community participation, and others.

- That it is written in clear, measurable, and interpretable language.

Conducting the steps to assess the present level of performance consumes a lot of time and effort from teachers and specialists in the field of educating and rehabilitating individuals with disabilities. But now you do not have to perform all these detailed steps! Ynmo offers you digital solutions to obtain the best professional results at the click of a button.

Get a ready-made template for assessing the present level of performance from Ynmo services!

Originally published in Arabic. This English version was produced with AI-assisted translation; the Arabic original remains the reference.