Social-Emotional Assessment/Evaluation Measure (SEAM (TM))

Featured in our 2018 Growing Strong Calendar.

With this in-depth, easy-to-use tool, your program can reliably assess and monitor social-emotional development in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers at risk for delays or challenges. An ideal followup to screeners such as ASQ®:SE-2, the two-part SEAM™ assessment reveals detailed qualitative information on children’s social-emotional competence— and identifies their caregivers’ strengths and areas of need. Easy to learn and implement, SEAM can be used by a wide variety of early childhood professionals, including those with little or no training in mental-health or behavioral interventions.

SEAM helps your program:

• support development of important social-emotional skills in order to minimize challenging behaviors
• build strong, proactive partnerships with families
• promote positive parent–child interactions in the critical first years of life
• assist with developing developmentally appropriate goals and intervention activities
• monitor child progress toward social-emotional goals

SEAM is a two-part assessment; All forms are available in English and Spanish on the CD-ROM or e-book.

SEAM Tool
The main SEAM includes three intervals with different developmental ranges: Infant (2–18 months), Toddler (18–36 months), and Preschool (36–66 months). Each interval assesses 10 child benchmarks critical to social-emotional competence, including empathy, adaptive skills, self-image, emotional responses, and healthy interactions with others.

SEAM is flexible enough to meet your specific needs—parents/caregivers can complete it independently, or you can conduct it jointly with them if they need extra guidance. The SEAM system also includes SEAM with Ages, an alternate version of the tool annotated with a helpful list of age ranges for each item. This version makes it easy to give caregivers general guidance on how social-emotional skills typically develop and where their child’s development fits on the continuum.

SEAM Family Profile
The Family Profile assesses parent and caregiver strengths and helps identify areas in which they need more supports and resources to foster their child’s social-emotional skills. Like the main SEAM, the Family Profile assessment includes three intervals—Infant, Toddler, and Preschool. Each interval measures four benchmarks key to a nurturing home environment: responding to needs, providing activities and play, providing predictable routines and an appropriate environment, and ensuring home safety.

List of SEAM benchmarks

1. Child participates in healthy interactions
2. Child expresses a range of emotions
3. Child regulates social-emotional responses
4. Child begins to show empathy for others
5. Child attends to and engages with others
6. Child explores hands and feet and surroundings (for infants)/demonstrates independence (for toddlers/preschoolers)
7. Child displays a positive self-image
8. Child regulates activity level
9. Child cooperates with daily routines and requests
10. Child shows a range of adaptive skills

View the webinar recording of Using the Social-Emotional Assessment/Evaluation Measure (SEAM™) with Young Children, presented by Jane Squires, Ph.D., and Misti Waddell, M.S.

See how this product helps strengthen Head Start program quality and school readiness.

Dr. Squires is Professor of Special Education, focusing on the field of early intervention/early childhood special education. She oversees research and outreach projects in the areas of developmental screening, implementation of screening systems, early identification of developmental delays, and the involvement of parents in monitoring their young children’s development.

She is lead author of the Ages & Stages Questionnaires®, Third Edition (ASQ®-3; with D. Bricker; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2009), Ages & Stages Questionnaires®: Social-Emotional, Second Edition (ASQ®:SE-2; with D. Bricker and E. Twombly; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2015), and the Social-Emotional Assessment/Evaluation Measure (SEAM™), Research Edition (with D. Bricker, M. Waddell, K. Funk, J. Clifford, & R. Hoselton; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2014).

She has authored or coauthored more than 90 books, chapters, assessments, videotapes, and articles on developmental screening and early childhood disabilities. In 2013, she coauthored the book Developmental Screening in Your Community: An Integrated Approach for Connecting Children with Services (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2013). Dr. Squires currently teaches doctoral-level courses in early intervention/special education and conducts research on comprehensive early identification and referral systems for preschool children.

Dr. Bricker served as Director of the Early Intervention Program at the Center on Human Development, University of Oregon, from 1978 to 2004. She was a professor of special education, focusing on the fields of early intervention and social-communication.

Her professional interests have addressed three major areas: early intervention service delivery approaches, curricula-based assessment and evaluation, and developmental-behavioral screening. Dr. Bricker's work in early intervention approaches has been summarized in two volumes: An Activity-Based Approach to Early Intervention, Fourth Edition (with J. Johnson & N. Rahn; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2015) and An Activity-Based Approach to Developing Young Children’s Social Emotional Competence (with J. Squires; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2007). Her work in curricula-based assessment/evaluation has focused on the development of the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System for Infants and Children, Second Edition (AEPS®; with B. Capt, K. Pretti- Frontczak, J. Johnson, K. Slentz, E. Straka, & M Waddell; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2004). This measure and curricula provides intervention personnel with a system for the comprehensive assessment of young children with results that link directly to curricular content and subsequent evaluation of child progress.

Dr. Bricker has been a primary author of the Ages & Stages Questionnaires® (ASQ®; with J. Squires; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1995, 1999, 2009) and directed research activities on the ASQ system starting in 1980. Developmental Screening in Your Community: An Integrated Approach for Connecting Children with Services (Bricker, Macy, Squires, & Marks; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2013) offers a comprehensive system for creating and operating community-wide developmental-behavioral screening programs for young children.

Dr. Bricker's distinctions include the Division of Early Childhood, Council for Exceptional Children Service to the Field Award, December 1992, and the Peabody College Distinguished Alumna Award, May 1995.

Misti Waddell, M.S., is a senior research assistant/project coordinator at the Early Intervention Program at the University of Oregon. She has contributed to the development and research of the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System for Infants and Children (AEPS®), Second Edition, since the early 1990s. She has used the AEPS in classroom settings and has coordinated several federally funded, field-initiated research projects and outreach training projects.

Her research products include Project SEAM: Preventing Behavior Disorders and Improving Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities and Infant Mental Health: Improving Mental Health in Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities. Ms. Waddell provides field supervision for early intervention graduate students and has conducted training with early childhood teachers and parents in developmental and social-emotional screening, assessment, and intervention, including AEPS, Ages & Stages Questionnaires®, Third Edition (ASQ-3), and Ages & Stages Questionnaires®: Social-Emotional, Second Edition (ASQ:SE-2™).

Kristin Funk, M.A., LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Senior Research Assistant and Project Coordinator in the University of Oregon’s Early Intervention Program. Ms. Funk has coordinated several community-based systems-change grants, including Project SEAM: Preventing Behavior Disorders and Improving Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities, a five-year research project to conduct psychometric studies for validation of the Social-Emotional Assessment/Evaluation Measure (SEAM™). She has conducted extensive training with early childhood teachers and parents in implementing social-emotional curricula and developmental and social emotional screening, assessment, and intervention, including the Assessment, Evaluation and Programming System for Infants and Children (AEPS®), Second Edition, and the Ages & Stages Questionnaires®, Third Edition (ASQ-3™) and Ages & Stages Questionnaires™: Social-Emotional, Second Edition (ASQ:SE-2™).

Dr. Clifford is on the faculty at the University of Oregon Early Intervention Program, where she teaches graduate courses in early intervention and early childhood special education. In addition to teaching at the university level, Dr. Clifford provides training internationally on the Ages & Stages Questionnaires®: A Parent-Completed Child Monitoring System, Third Edition (Squires & Bricker; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2009), and the Ages & Stages Questionnaires®: Social-Emotional, Second Edition (Squires, Bricker & Twombly; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2015). Her professional interests include personnel preparation and the development and evaluation of early childhood assessment measures. Prior to the pursuit of her doctoral degree, Dr. Clifford served as an early childhood educator for 8 years.

Mr. Hoselton received a bachelor of science degree in computer science from the University of Oregon in 2004. He has been involved in several research studies on the Ages & Stages Questionnaires® (ASQ®) and the Social-Emotional Assessment/Evaluation Measure (SEAM™; with J. Squires, D. Bricker, M. Waddell, K. Funk, & J. Clifford; Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2014). Mr. Hoselton also develops and operates the Oregon Screening Project’s research web site. He is mainly responsible for web application development, database management, and data analysis.