Meisels argues that "assessment is closely tied to its utility - to its contributions to decision making about practice or intervention or its judgments about a child's continuing progress." When there is a fusion of assessment and intervention, each will inform the other in an interactive process. Intervention will put into practice the hypothesis raised by the assessment which will in turn provide more information upon which to revisit the original evaluation.

See "definition_observation? " for related information.

Meisels, S.J. & Atkins-Burnett, S. The Elements of Early Childhood Assessment. In J.P. Shonkoff and S.J. Meisels (Eds.), Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention (2nd ed.), 115-132. New York: Cambridge University Press.Zero to Three, Feb/March 2001, vol. 21, No. 4