genArete: Milestone based comparison criteria in Skill Assessment

Abstract In this second talk of his three-part series on skill-based assessment, Mark Malady, BCBA, examines the comparison criteria embedded in the assessments most commonly used with autistic learners and argues that many still steer clinicians toward normalization even as the field claims to have moved past that agenda. He shows how visual design choices, such as center-to-outer layouts, preset axes, and blank scoring space, evoke predictable clinician behavior like teaching to the test, where assessment scores rise while global measures such as the Vineland show no meaningful change. He frames assessment tools as products of clinical work that acquire evocative and abative functions over clinical decision-making. Malady contrasts the two dominant criterion types, age-based norm-referenced benchmarks and professionally developed criteria, and proposes a third alternative: flexible, person-selected, outcome-based milestones benchmarked from competent performers. Using the genArete Learning System's skill-gram displays, he demonstrates how overlaying a milestone as a second data path redirects clinical attention and changes the meaning of blank space, illustrated by an adult in 24-hour care whose data far exceeded a benchmarked stay-home-alone milestone, reframing a skill-building conversation as a dignity-of-risk conversation. He reviews benchmarked milestones such as entry-level employment, living with a roommate, and kindergarten readiness, then outlines practical steps: identify competent performers, set item criteria, test with novel performers, build cross-learner data flow, and use quality-of-life surveys to repeatedly orient to milestone achievement. The Q&A covers selling the approach to leadership, selecting five focus targets, and reconciling learner and caregiver milestone mismatches.