Grades K-8. The Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) is a behavior rating scale that assesses skills related to social-emotional competence, resilience, and academic success. It is designed to be completed by parents, teachers, and after school staff.
The DESSA Kit includes:
- DESSA Manual
- DESSA Norms Reference Card
- 1 set of DESSA Record Forms (25 paper forms, which are scorable by hand)
- Zippered tote bag
Why Should You Use the DESSA?
- Assess skills related to social-emotional competence, resilience, and academic success
- Measure outcomes of social-emotional learning programs, and compliance with social-emotional learning standards at the child, class, school, and district level
- Identify children at risk of developing social-emotional problems
- Identify social-emotional strengths and needs for individualized education programs (IEPs)
- Enhance teacher practice with unique interpretation tools found only in the DESSA and other Devereux assessments
- User-friendly, no special training or certification required
Features
The DESSA is a standardized, strength-based measure of social-emotional competencies of children in Kindergarten through the 8th grade. Grounded in resilience theory, the DESSA provides user-friendly, practical tools that meet the highest professional standards. With the DESSA, parents, teachers and after school program staff can assess social-emotional skills related to school and life success. Administration time is less than ten minutes.
72-Strength-Based Measures
The 72 strength-based measures comprise 8 scales:
- Optimistic Thinking
- Relationship Skills
- Self-Awareness
- Personal Responsibility
- Self-Management
- Goal-Directed Behavior
- Social-Awareness
- Decision Making
Character Counts Crosswalk Responsive Classroom Crosswalk
Second Step Curriculum Crosswalk
Empirically Sound for All Levels of Intervention
At the universal (Tier I) level:
- Assess all children for social-emotional strengths and areas needing further development
- Assess the outcomes of social-emotional learning and school-wide positive behavior support programs
At the targeted (Tier II) level:
- Identify children at risk
- Identify specific social-emotional competencies that need further development
At the indicated (Tier III) level:
- Contribute to eligibility determinations
- Identify meaningful strength statements for IEPs
- Facilitate parent collaboration
Standardization Sample
Nationally normed on 2,500 children, the DESSA continues the tradition of meaningful, practical and empirically sound evaluation of children's strengths established by the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment. Standardization sample (n=2,500) reflects the diversity of children today.
Product Features
- The Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) is a behavior rating scale!
- Completed by parents, teachers, and after school staff.
- Assesses skills related to social-emotional competence, resilience, and more.
- Includes the manual, norms reference card, and 25 hand-scorable paper record forms.
Watch a previously recorded version of the 1-Hour webinar here.