Abstract:
Available in Spanish, Portuguese, and Pilipino versions, the Bilingual Home Inventory is a culturally specific instrument for assessing students with severe handicaps. Because it provides information about the student's home and community environment, and his learning style, it is basis for the development of linguistically and culturally appropriate IEPs. It can be used with students in K-12. The "home" environment is broken down into sub-environments that correspond to the rooms of the house. Each sub-environment is broken down into activities that take place there. Activities are analyzed to discover what the necessary skills to accomplish them are, and the skills are broken down into small behavioral units via task analysis. The student's current level of functioning is then assessed and instructional goals are set. Much of the required information is gathered from the student's family, so the administrator of the inventory must be bilingual.