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Dynamic assessment: Prevailing models and applications
Edited by Carol S. Lidz & Julian G. Elliott
Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2000, Hardback $86.00. ISBN 0-7623-0424-3
Dynamic assessment of young children
By David Tzuriel
Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001. Hardback 41.00, $60.00. ISBN 0-306-46510-8
In 1979 a remarkable book was published which dared to question the very foundations upon which much of modern psychometric theory, and certainly its application by applied educational and clinical psychologists, were based. That book, The dynamic assessment of retarded performers, not only introduced the name of Reuven Feuerstein to a fairly unsuspecting world but also set out for the first time a logical, coherent and ethical alternative to so-called 'static' assessment.
Feuerstein and his co-workers constructed the Learning Potential Assessment Device (LAPD) as their means of carrying out dynamic assessment, which they based on his theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability (SCM), drawing in particular on the notion of a `cognitive map'. This was the first such technique to be introduced into the UK in the mid-1980s at a workshop organised in Exeter, but was only taken up by a small and dedicated group of practitioners who kept the flame of dynamic assessment alive in this country until the mid-1990s. At that time, a change in zeitgeist and the drive of groups such as the Southwark Psychological Service began to establish dynamic assessment as a viable or complementary alternative to more traditional psychological assessment practice.
A key text in the mid-1980s was Carol Lidz's excellent book of readings which provided a comprehensive overview of both theoretical and practical aspects of DA. However, apart from occasional journal articles, the literature in this area has remained relatively sparse. What has clearly been needed has been an up-to-date text which covers the multitude of techniques that have been constructed over the past two decades under the guise of dynamic assessment. This is essentially what Lidz and Elliott have attempted to do, and therein lies its strength and its weakness. It provides a comprehensive coverage of some twenty techniques, each summarised by its author, unsurprisingly, in a non-critical manner. The editors try to pull together some of the strands...