EARLY CHILDHOOD / ASSESSMENT

“Early interventionists will find this tool invaluable for all steps—from IFSP development to progress monitoring to program evaluation. Dr. McWilliam has provided us with another invaluable, evidence-based approach that will work with infants, toddlers, and their families.”
—Jane Squires, Ph.D., Professor, Early Intervention/Special Education, University of Oregon

Make the MEISR a part of your early intervention program, and you’ll have a powerful tool that helps families enhance natural learning opportunities and support their child’s engagement.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: R.A. McWilliam, Ph.D., is the originator of the Routines-Based Model and Professor of Special Education at The University of Alabama, where he founded and directs the Evidence-based International Early Intervention Office.

Measure of Engagement, Independence, and Social Relationships (MEISR™) Manual

Research Edition

by
R. A. McWilliam, Ph.D.

The University of Alabama

and Naomi Younggren, Ph.D.
Department of Defense Army Educational and Developmental Intervention Services (EDIS) Early Intervention Programs
With invited contributors

Preface: The Need for the MEISR

The Measure of Engagement, Independence, and Social Relationships, or MEISR™, is a uniquely designed tool organized by family routines. As such, it fills the functional assessment void found in the field of early intervention. Current conventional assessment tests...

The MEISR is structured around 14 everyday home routines and designed to be used with children from birth to 36 months of age. Items reflect the functional skills infants and toddlers typically display in each routine; for each item, a typical starting age is listed. To complete the MEISR, parents or other caregivers rate each item with a 3 (if the child does the skill often or has progressed beyond it), a 2 (if the child does it sometimes), or a 1 (if the child does not yet do it). If an item is rated 3, the child is considered to have mastered the skill. The intervention professional uses the caregiver’s ratings to determine the percentage of items mastered for each routine and then to complete a scoring summary. In this way, the MEISR provides a profile of child functioning in everyday life. This profile helps caregivers monitor progress and identify areas to work on.

Contents

• About the Authors

  • R. A. McWilliam, Ph.D., Professor and Department Head, Department of Special Education and Multiple Abilities, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
  • Naomi Younggren, Ph.D., Early Childhood Consultant, Department of Defense Army Educational and Developmental Intervention Services

• About the Contributors

  • Tânia Boavida, Ph.D., Researcher, Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social, ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal
  • Cami M. Stevenson, M.S., Assistant Administrator, Multnomah Early Childhood Program, Portland, Oregon

• The MEISR dovetails with the five components of the RBM—understanding the family ecology; developing a functional, family-centered plan (RBI); integration of services; support-based home visits; and collaborative consultation to child care.

• The MEISR assesses a child’s engagement in common family routines. It is designed to develop a profile of the functioning of a young child (birth to 3 years of age) and to monitor progress within that profile.

• The MEISR provides different types of information about a child’s functioning, depending upon the team’s assessment purpose. It can generate a profile of the child’s functioning organized around routines and by age.

Routines Assessed by the MEISR

• Grocery Shopping
• Toileting/Diapering
• Going Out
• Bedtime
• Play With Others
• Play by Him- or Herself
• Outside Time
• Hangout – TV – Books

Conclusion

The MEISR is an ideal tool to help professionals shift to a functional way of viewing children and using the family’s knowledge of their child to complete the assessment.