Clinical Assessments

A Clearer Path From Assessment to Support

Before services begin, our clinical team completes assessments that help us understand your child’s strengths, communication skills, social development, daily living abilities, and areas where additional support may be beneficial.

What the Assessment Process Helps Us Understand

Your child’s current strengths
Communication skills
Social development
Daily living abilities
Areas where additional support may be beneficial

Explore the Assessment Tools

Select an assessment to review its purpose, age range, and supporting research.

VB-MAPP

The VB-MAPP (Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program) is used to evaluate language and social skills for children diagnosed with autism.

This assessment tool was developed by Dr. Mark Sundberg. Mark Sundberg describes the VB-MAPP as being appropriate primarily for assessing children with developmental levels from birth to approximately 48 months (4 years)—not strictly chronological age, but developmental age.

More precisely:

The Milestones Assessment is norm-referenced against typically developing children from 0–48 months
It is commonly used with children with autism or other developmental delays whose skills fall within that range
It can be used with older individuals if their verbal, social, and learning repertoires are at or below a 4-year developmental level

Sundberg emphasizes that:

The VB-MAPP is criterion-referenced, but grounded in typical developmental milestones
It is most meaningful when the learner’s repertoire aligns with early language and learning stages (e.g., mand, tact, listener skills, play, social behavior)

The licensed Board Certified Behavior Analysts use VB-MAPP results to identify present levels and also to set goals and objectives for their treatment plans.

The VB-MAPP breaks language down into functional categories based on the context of Skinner’s verbal operants.

To get an understanding of verbal behavior, and the role that ABA plays in the acquisition of language for children diagnosed with autism, please review the following publications listed below.

Publications:

Sundberg, M. L. (2020). Verbal behavior. In J. O. Cooper, T. E. Heron, & W. L. Heward (Eds.), Applied behavior analysis (3rd ed., pp. 412–449). Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Sundberg, M. L. (2010). Questions on verbal behavior and its application to individuals with autism: An interview with the experts. Behavior Analysis Today, 11, 196–205. [Download Behavior Analysis Today PDF]

Sundberg, M. L. (2016b). The value of a behavior analysis of language for autism treatment. In R. G. Romanczyk & J. McEachin (Eds.), Comprehensive models of autism spectrum disorder treatment: Points of divergence and convergence (pp. 81–116). Springer.

Sundberg, M. L. (2013b). Thirty points about motivation from Skinner’s book Verbal behavior. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 29, 13–40.

ABLLS-R

The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills–Revised (ABLLS-R) published in 2006 — Revised by James W. Partington, PhD, BCBA is a criterion-referenced assessment, curriculum guide, and skills-tracking system developed by James Partington to evaluate and teach functional skills in individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities.

Grounded in the principles of applied behavior analysis and B. F. Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior, the ABLLS-R assesses over 500 skills across 25 domains, including language, learning readiness, social interaction, academic abilities, self-help, and motor skills. Rather than comparing a learner to age-based norms, it identifies specific skills that have been mastered and those requiring instruction, making it a valuable tool for individualized treatment planning and ongoing progress monitoring.

The ABLLS-R is particularly useful for learners from birth to 12 years old who have progressed beyond early developmental milestones and require comprehensive programming across functional, adaptive, and academic skill areas.

Essential for Living

Dr. Patrick McGreevy & Dr. Troy Fry are the co-authors of Essential for Living, published in 2012. Essential for Living (EFL) is a criterion-referenced functional assessment and curriculum developed for individuals with moderate-to-severe disabilities, including those with limited communication and significant support needs.

Unlike assessments that focus primarily on developmental milestones or academic skills, the EFL emphasizes the acquisition of essential functional skills that promote safety, independence, communication, participation in daily life, and quality of life. The assessment evaluates critical areas such as functional communication, tolerance, compliance, independent living, vocational, social, leisure, and community skills while also identifying problem behaviors and other barriers that may interfere with learning.

Results are used to prioritize instruction based on the individual’s immediate needs and the practical importance of skills, making the EFL particularly well suited for adolescents and adults or individuals whose educational goals center on meaningful, lifelong functional outcomes rather than traditional developmental progression. EFL spans all age groups.

Socially Savvy

Socially Savvy is an assessment that guides licensed Board Certified Behavior Analysts to break down areas of social functioning such as joint attending, social play, self-regulation, classroom/group behavior, etc.

This assessment tool was developed by James T. Ellis, Ph.D., BCBA-D, and Christine Almeida, M.S.Ed, Ed.S, BCBA in 2014 serving age groups 3 to 7. This assessment uses a checklist format where skills are rated based on observation in social settings over a period of time, and the curriculum guides licensed Board Certified Behavior Analysts with targeted instruction example role-playing which would include practicing real-life social scenarios.

Skillstreaming

Skillstreaming is a structured social skills curriculum developed by Arnold Goldstein and colleagues that is widely used by ABA providers to teach socially significant behaviors to children and adolescents.

The curriculum breaks complex social interactions into specific, teachable steps and targets skills such as listening, initiating and maintaining conversations, following directions, sharing, problem solving, managing emotions, handling conflict, and developing friendships.

Within ABA programs, Skillstreaming is commonly implemented using evidence-based instructional strategies including behavioral skills training (instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback), reinforcement, prompting, role-play, and repeated practice across natural settings to promote skill acquisition, maintenance, and generalization.

The curriculum is frequently incorporated into individual and group interventions to improve social competence, peer interactions, emotional regulation, and successful participation in home, school, and community environments.

Teaching Social Skills to Youth

Teaching Social Skills to Youth Published in September 2022 by Kat McGrady, Jeff Tierney, Tom Dowd, and Erin Green is a structured social skills curriculum originally developed through the Boys Town model and commonly adapted by ABA providers to teach functional social and interpersonal skills to children and adolescents.

The curriculum organizes social behaviors into teachable, observable, and measurable component steps and addresses a broad range of skills, including conversation, cooperation, emotional regulation, conflict resolution, friendship, problem solving, and self-advocacy. Instruction typically incorporates behavioral teaching strategies such as task analysis, modeling, behavioral skills training (instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback), role-play, reinforcement, and practice across natural environments to promote skill acquisition and generalization.

The curriculum is frequently used in individual and group ABA programming to develop socially significant behaviors that improve peer relationships, community participation, and overall social competence.

Vineland

The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Vineland-3) is a standardized, norm-referenced assessment developed by Sara S. Sparrow, PhD, Domenic V. Cicchetti, PhD & Celine A. Saulnier, PhD published in 2016, serving the age group from birth through 90+ years of age.

The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (Vineland-3) is commonly used by ABA providers to evaluate an individual’s adaptive functioning across everyday environments. Information is obtained through caregiver or teacher interviews and rating forms to assess performance in the domains of communication, daily living skills, socialization, motor skills (when applicable), and adaptive behavior composite. Within ABA, the Vineland-3 is used to identify strengths and areas of need, establish baseline levels of adaptive functioning, support diagnoses and eligibility determinations, guide individualized treatment planning, and measure meaningful changes in functional outcomes over time.

Because it evaluates how individuals independently apply skills in their natural environments rather than what they can demonstrate under structured testing conditions, the Vineland-3 provides valuable information regarding functional independence, generalization of learned skills, and overall adaptive behavior.

Assessment results help shape goals that are meaningful, measurable, and individualized.

Understand Current Skills

Identify strengths and areas where additional support may be beneficial.

Select Individualized Goals

Use assessment results to set goals and objectives for an individualized treatment plan.

Guide Treatment Planning

Translate findings into meaningful, measurable support across daily life.

Find out how the assessment process would work for your child.