PEAK Comprehensive Assessment
(PCA)
The PCA offers the assessor everything needed to get the evaluation job done correct the first time. From the step by step instructions, scoring guide and durable materials to all needed stimulus materials, and to the verbatim script to deliver to your clients, the PCA makes evaluating language and cognition a breeze.
The PCA can be administered in as little as 20 minutes to a young early learner, and no more than 2 hours to an extremely high functioning verbally sophisticated client.
Almost 6 years after the first public release of PEAK, Dixon returned back to the laboratory to explore the potential of designing a more effective and efficient method to assess a client's repertoire of skills. Retaining the majority of items from the prior "pre-assessments" found within the PEAK modules or downloadable from this website, the PCA set the stage for the ABA community's first standardized tool.
The PCA was crafted to improve upon the slight variations that could occur when administering the prior assessments, ensure standardization of delivery, and reduce time to completion, all along maintaining extremely high correlations with the prior PEAK assessment tools.
The PCA improves upon the prior pre-assessments in a number of ways.
1. More comparison stimuli are used for receptive test items to reduce the probability of a chance-correct response from selecting from too small of an array.
2. Culturally narrow items have been removed and replaced with similar items that are more universal across cultures.
3. A broader range of relational frames are evaluated in the Transformation subtest.
4. Answers are provided as to correct, incorrect and query responses, along with cut-off scores.