A Report that Grows with Us: The New CBDA Child Report

This past year, we’ve been listening, really listening, to the people who use our Curriculum-Based Dynamic Assessment (CBDA). From school-based speech-language pathologists to resource teachers, to those in private practice, they’ve told us what worked, what didn’t, and what could improve their experience. Their feedback has been at the heart of something we’re proud to share: a new version of the CBDA Child Report.

When we first designed the CBDA report, our focus was on capturing the richness of a child’s learning potential through dynamic assessment. It worked, but as more professionals began using the CBDA, their insights helped us see our own tool through fresh eyes.

The CBDA has always been about seeing the child beyond static scores, about measuring learning potential, not just performance. But learning potential can feel abstract. We wanted to make it visible, intuitive, and easy to interpret at a glance.

Over the past months, we improved the CBDA Child Report to do just that: to tell each child’s story with greater clarity and connection.

A Clearer, More Connected Story

The earlier report organized results in long, separate sections: all pre-test results first, then mediation sessions, and finally post-test outcomes. It worked, but it forced readers to flip between pages to connect the dots.

Now, when you open the report, you’ll see something that feels familiar but new. It reflects TRICOAST Education’s refreshed colours and identity, calm, clear, and grounded in purpose. The layout flows more naturally. Pre-test, mediation, and post-test results appear side by side so you can clearly see how the child responds and improves.

Making Learning Potential Visible

One of the most exciting updates is how the report now displays learning potential. The overall learning potential summary is colour-coded, giving a quick sense of where the child stands: green, yellow, or red, but always paired with meaningful interpretation. It is not about labels; it is about understanding where to focus next.

Each aspect of learning that we measure (examiner effort, child responsiveness, and skill transfer) now has its own colour, showing where the child required the most support and where they showed the greatest independence. These visual cues make interpretation simple and immediate.

• Expanding Learning Potential Across Ages

  Because our users work with a wide range of ages, we have extended our learning potential data and cut-off scores up to age 17. This allows clinicians and educators to use the CBDA confidently with older students while maintaining precision and reliability.

  This extension makes the CBDA more inclusive, ensuring that the learning potential framework applies to a broader developmental range and reflects the same commitment to equity that guides all our work.

  
  

• Following Targetted Skills

  Each mediation targeted skill, such as a character’s physical description or story attempt, is now colour-coded with its own shade of blue.

  This visual link helps users immediately identify the link between how the child responded, what strategies worked, the effort the examiner exerted, and the change from pre-test to post-test on the two targeted skills.

Smarter Automation for Deeper Analysis

We know time matters. That is why much of the report’s behind-the-scenes work is now automated.

The CBDA platform automatically calculates key measures in a child’s pre- and post-test stories, such as story length (number of words) and story complexity (number of different words). These automated calculations save valuable time and provide optional, deeper insights for those who want them. They also offer a richer view of language growth, showing how children expand both in content and in linguistic variety.

Everything, from mediation notes to numerical data, flows directly from the platform into the report, reducing manual entry and the risk of human error.

Built for Collaboration

The new report also makes it easier to visualize progress. Side-by-side snapshots of pre- and post-test results show how a child’s language changes, including how their stories become clearer and their vocabulary grows.

Each section is clearer and more intuitive. The learning potential summary gives a quick, colour-coded sense of where support might be needed while still respecting the complexity of each child’s journey. The narrative sections provide structured space for reflection, blending data, observation, and professional insight.

The updated child report is designed to make collaboration easier for everyone who supports the child. It replaces dense, technical language with clear visuals and plain-language explanations that clinicians, educators, and families can use immediately. Clinicians can identify the specific language skills to target in their next sessions and gain insight on whether further testing is needed. Educators can quickly see a child’s strengths and the classroom strategies most likely to support their progress. Parents can understand how their child learns because the report uses straightforward wording and clear examples. By reorganizing the report around the core learning processes measured in the CBDA rather than the order of the testing tasks, it becomes easier to see what matters most: how the child learns and what supports will help them move forward.

As we continue to improve the CBDA platform, our focus remains on equity, accuracy, and accessibility. Every change to the CBDA Child Report was made to help professionals spend less time decoding data and more time supporting children’s learning.

Every child’s story deserves to be understood not just through numbers but through the way they learn, respond, and grow. That story is now clearer than ever thanks to feedback from our users, our community, and our partners in helping every child reach their full learning potential.

Ready to explore the new CBDA Child Report?

Certified users can now access the new CBDA platform and child report. Log in to see the updates in action and experience how the new report makes every child’s learning journey easier to understand and support.

Want to use the CBDA in your practice or in your school?

Calling SLPs, resource teachers, and other educational professionals!

Join professionals using the CBDA to spot language learning needs early and support every child’s potential.

Our live and online training helps school-based and private practitioners bring the CBDA into daily practice. Each session is interactive, evidence-based, can be conducted in either English or French, and led by Dr. Anne Laurie, the developer of the CBDA.

Email info@tricoasteducation.com with the subject line ‘CBDA info’ for certification details.