Mullen

Scales of Early Learning Screening

Background Information
Name: Matt
Date of Birth: 01/18/2012
Age: 2 years

Reason for Referral: Practice for Students
Examiners: Group 1
Address of Screening: University of NH
Tool: Mullen Scales of Early Learning
Date of Screening: 03/19/2014

FINDINGS
Matt was administered the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. The Mullen Scales of
Early Learning consists of 5 scales: Gross Motor, Visual Reception, Fine Motor,
Receptive Language, and Expressive Language.


Percentile
Descrip. Category Age Equivalent
Gross Motor
62
Average
27
Visual Reception
16
Average
21
Fine Motor
7
Below average
21
Receptive Lang.
66
Average
28
Expressive Lang.
21
Average
22

Gross Motor
-In the area of gross motor, Matt completed most of the tasks just by walking in with
his mother. He was able to walk with one hand held, stand-alone, walk alone, stand-
squat-stand, and run. With prompting, Matt was able to throw a ball and kick a ball.
During the screening Matt did not willingly try to stand by rolling to his side.
However, at the end of the screening, Matt was lying down on the floor and then
rolled over to stand up to put on his coat. Given how the child was tired and time
was running out the examiners stopped at question 21 and asked the mother
questions about the childs development. The examiners found that he can stand on
one foot with help, walk 4 to 5 steps on a line, walk upstairs by self, jump down from
a bench with 2 feet, jump in place, and walk on tiptoes.

Visual Reception
-In the area of visual reception, Matt was able to look for a ring hidden under a
washcloth fully. He began hiding the ring himself and telling the examiners to look
for it. The child was able to discriminate the forms on the formboard. Once the
examiner showed him the first form he began filling in the formboard on his own
without instruction. Matt had difficulty matching shapes and pictures by color and
size. He was more interested in playing with the objects then matching them. During
the screening Matt did not match the nesting cups. However, when he was asked to

pick them up he matched all of the nesting cups. Matt shows signs that he is
emerging in his matching ability.

Fine Motor
-In the area of fine motor, Matt was able to imitate crayon lines. He drew a vertical
and horizontal line. He was able to put pennies in a slot, horizontal and vertical. Matt
was able to imitate a four-block train. He proceeded to push the block train and say,
choo-choo. The child had difficulty taking blocks out of the container and putting
the blocks back in. At first, Matt did not want to take the blocks out of the container.
Once he saw that all eyes were on him, he began to pretend that the container was a
hat. He would put the container on his head so that all of the blocks would spill onto
the floor. However, this action was later observed when the child put several
goldfish in a container and then took them back out one by one. Matt was able to
stack 4 blocks during the screening. Once he had 4 blocks he would stand up and
stomp down the tower (he repeated this several times). Matt is emerging in his fine
motor skills. He was very close to being able to string beads and unscrew/screw the
nut and bolt.

Receptive Language
In the area of Receptive Language, Matt knew all of his body parts and could identify
pictures of objects such as car, ball, shoe, and doll. The child could comprehend
action words such as eating and sleeping. Matts skills in auditory spatial awareness
are emerging. He identified two positions in and under. He had trouble identifying
the functions of objects such as a car, scissors, spoon, and chair. By watching him
during the screening, Matt identified the functions of those objects during his play.

Expressive Language
In the area of Expressive Language, Matt said 8+ words. When he first walked into
the testing room he yelled, Hi! He was nervous when he first walked in and kept
saying, I want mommy, I wore my boots, I want apple. He was able to name 4
out of 6 objects (ball, cup, key, and knife). Matt used pronouns in his speech such as
I and you. While naming the picture vocabulary, Matt named 9 out of 20 pictures.
He named phone, spoon, bed, television, ball, bird, house, door, and ladder.

Strengths and Challenges
Matt is strong in all categories. He is a very talkative, little boy who is very curious
about the world around him. Matts descriptive category for gross motor, visual
reception, receptive language, and expressive language was average. Matt is
below average in fine motor. By observing the child, he is already starting to
emerge in his fine motor skills. He could have scored below average for a number of
reasons. One of the challenges during this screening was keeping all of the supplies
away from the child so he wasnt distracted. He wanted to play with a lot of the
objects during the screening time. Another challenge was the time crunch and how
tired Matt became toward the end of the screening.

Recommendations
Matt needs to continue to work on his fine motor skills. He can do this by playing
with playdough, stringing beads, coloring/writing, playing in the sand, or building
towers. Matt needs to continue to work on his matching skills. Sorting objects by
shape, size, and color. Lastly, Matt needs to continue to be in an environment where
he can participate in imaginary play. This will help him improve his communication
skills.


Reflection
When the child first walked into the screening room, it was hard to tell how he was
going to respond to the Mullen. He seemed very shy and wanted to stand next to his
mom the whole time. He felt most comfortable sitting next to her while he ate his
snack and drank his water. Once we started the screening he seemed to open up
more. He really liked looking at all of the supplies and playing with them (especially
the car, cups, and spoon). Looking back at the screening, I would not say this is an
accurate representation of the childs abilities. The child was out of his element. He
walked in a classroom with 5 college students with whom he did not recognize. The
testing also took part later in the day, so the child seemed tired and irritable at some
points. I feel that if we conducted the screening at a place that the child was
comfortable at he would have been more likely to complete some of the tasks. One
advantage of this assessment tool was seeing 5 different scales. We got to view his
gross motor skills, fine motor, visual reception, receptive/expressive language.
We got to see which areas he needs work in and which areas he is excelling in. One
challenge when using this assessment was trying to keep all of the materials
organized and out of reach of the child. The materials distracted the child for most of
the tasks. One thing I would change if I were to do the Mullen again would be to
organize my materials so that they werent a distraction to the child. I will also move
on to the next task if the child doesnt get it right away. It seemed like this made the
child irritable when we kept trying to get him to complete something. Overall, I
enjoyed conducting the Mullen and thought it was a great learning experience.