Mia Mandler

Project Portfolio Description

Creating a Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program Kit to Conduct
Intake and Annual Assessments on Children Diagnosed with Autism at The Child Center

The Child Center is a non-profit agency that offers psychiatric, therapeutic, and special education services to children diagnosed with autism and/or stereotypy. They have an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) clinic in Lane County that uses clinical assessments to provide individualized therapy and education services to these children as well as support and training for their families. The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP) assessment is the most widely used tool to assess development in individuals with autism. Organization, clinical consistency, and structure are crucial to this agency’s operations and the population they serve, yet their VB-MAPP assessments have proved challenging in prioritizing these three factors. I created a VB-MAPP assessment kit so the staff at the Child Center can complete necessary assessments on all their clients in a much more clear, concise, and organized manner. This kit will ensure accurate data, interrater reliability, and internal consistency within their assessments. The VB-MAPP assessment is used on each client at intake and then annually following. This will ensure the kit’s future sustainability as these assessments are used as the primary source for creating treatment plans and therapeutic programs for each child. The more accurate data yielded and the ease that these assessments can now be administered with will provide more accurate data, which in turn will help each client grow and progress in their development.