Handout #17 - Participant’s Case Study Guide 1
José Cruz
Age: 35 months
Grade: Transitioning to Pre-K
Home: Lives with mom and maternal grandparents
Disability: Developmental Delay
School: Transitioning from Early Steps/ Eligibility
for Pre-K ESE Services not yet determined.
Current Placement: Attended community-based Dolphin Cove Preschool for the past year; received language services 1x/week for one hour.
Language: Mother speaks primarily English to José at home. His grandparents speak to him primarily in Spanish. At Dolphin Cove preschool, they speak English.
Family Resources, Priorities, and Concerns: José’s mom, Carmela, reports concerns with his attention span and communication. She is working with José on toileting, but the grandparents think that José should be toilet trained.
Documented Observations and Work Samples: At the time of testing, José was hesitant but separated from this mother. He was cooperative and friendly and followed simple directions. José spoke in 1-3 word sentences that were easily understood by the examiner. The testing was done in English. José appeared to understand the instructions and responded in English. Before and after the testing, José was observed to talk with his mother in both Spanish and English.
Assessment: Battelle Developmental Inventory-2nd Edition (BDI-2)
Adaptive -76 (-1.6 SD)
Personal-Social -76 (-1.6 SD)
Communication-75 (-1.7 SD)
Motor-95 (-0.3 SD)
Cognitive-80 (-1.3 SD)
TOTAL – 74 (-1.7 SD)
Preschool Language Scale (PLS) – 4th Edition
Subtest Standard Score Age Equivalent
Auditory Comprehension 78 2 years 2 months
Expressive Communication 78 2 years 0 months
Total Language Score 76 2 years 0 months
José qualifies for the Pre-K ESE Program based on delays of 1.5 SD in the Adaptive, Personal-Social, and Communication Domains. The PLS-4 reveals a delay in both auditory comprehension (78) and expressive communication (78), with a total language score of 76 or 2 SD below the mean in the Communication Domain.
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