The Verbal Behaviour Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program (VB MAPP)
The VB-MAPP is a criterion-referenced assessment tool, curriculum guide, and skill tracking system that is designed for children with autism and other individuals who demonstrate language delay. The VB-MAPP is based on B.F. Skinner’s (1957) analysis of verbal behaviour, established developmental protocol and research from the field of behaviour analysis. It is an exciting advancement in our field.
There are five components of the VB-MAPP, and collectively they provide a baseline level of performance, a direction for intervention, a system for tracking skill acquisition, a tool for outcome measures and other language research projects and a framework for curriculum planning. Each of the skills in the VB-MAPP is not only measurable and developmentally balanced, but they are balanced across the verbal operants and other related skills.
The five components of VB-MAPP are:
- VB-MAPP Milestones Assessment - designed to provide a representative sample of a child’s existing verbal and related skills. The skills assessed include tact, motor imitation, independent play, social and social play, visual perceptual and matching-to-sample, linguistic structure, group and classroom skills and early academics.
- VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment - an assessment of 24 common learning and language acquisition barriers faced by children with autism or other developmental disabilities. By identifying these barriers, the consultant can develop specific intervention strategies to help overcome these problems, which can lead to more effective learning and greater communication and language skills.
- VB-MAPP Transition Assessment - helps to identify whether a child is making meaningful progress and has acquired the skills necessary for learning in a less restrictive educational environment.
- VB-MAPP Task Analysis and Skills Tracking - provides a further breakdown of the skills and serves as a more complete and ongoing learning and language skills curriculum guide. Also provides parents and teachers with a variety of activities that can facilitate generalisation, maintenance, spontaneity, retention, expansion, and the functional use of skills in a variety of educational and social contexts.
- VB-MAPP Placement and IEP Goals – the placement guide provides specific direction for each of the milestones in the Milestones Assessment as well as suggestions for IEP goals.
Some children with autism or other developmental disabilities fail to make significant gains in their language intervention programmes because of specific learning and language barriers. If these barriers can be identified, they often can be reduced and even eliminated. The Verbal behaviour milestones assessment and placement programme map contains an assessment that targets 24 different learning and language barriers. Combined with a variety of intervention programmes designed to reduce or remove specific barriers and one-off assessments for families and schools to identify areas to address, assessments can be used to develop comprehensive programmes for families and learners to maximise their potential.
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