Assessing children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities using Routes for Learning: What the data from one school tells us

Background: To explore the longitudinal data collected by one school on progress of children with PIMD using Routes for learning (RfL) (WAG, 2006), an educational assessment tool for children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities based on typical development covering communication, cognition and environmental interaction.
Method: A school has been keeping data on individual children's progress using RfL since 2006, consisting of the sequence in which the boxes were attained, the highest-numbered box achieved and the total boxes achieved at each time point. Ethical approval was obtained for access to an anonymised version of this data.
Results: The sequence in which Routemap boxes were attained by children shows good agreement with the theoretical sequence. Younger children acquired higher-numbered boxes at a significantly faster rate than older children.
Conclusions: Further investigation is needed into the factors contributing to these results. The order in which boxes were achieved may in part be determined by the teaching strategy of the school. Data on the total number of boxes achieved at each time point will be presented, but the apparently slower progress of older children may be due to teachers concentrating on generalising skills already acquired, or a larger developmental gap between later and earlier boxes.