Learning, Intelligence and Development:
Detailed Assessments of Cognitive and Academic Ability
Our cognitive assessments have been expertly developed to offer the highest quality understanding of your child’s intellectual, academic and psychological strengths and weaknesses, in addition to a detailed profile of their day-to-day functioning.
Our assessments are extremely thorough, far more in depth than an educational psychology assessment, and can:
- Provide a detailed understanding into your child’s thinking, reasoning and academic abilities
- Identify an intellectual / learning disability
- Identify specific learning disorders, such as dyslexia or dyscalculia
- Evaluate intellectual and academic strengths and weaknesses
- Assess for giftedness
- Identify and recommend appropriate support to be put in place, from small changes within the classroom, to recommending Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP) to be put in place
- Understand psychological wellbeing and adaptive behaviours (adaptive behaviours describe the day-to-day things people do to function in everyday life, including communication skills, daily living skills, and social skills).
- Understand social cognition (the study of how people understand and perform in social interactions).
- Assess executive functioning (a set of abilities related to planning and organising complex behaviours, attention and concentration, inhibition, and initiation of behaviours).
What happens in the assessment?
Our cognitive assessments include very thorough discussions about your child’s development, family history, education history, social development and your concerns. We will ask your child to complete many engaging and challenging puzzles and tasks using the most up to date and advanced technology. We will also spend some time talking about their strengths and their weaknesses in day-to-day tasks, such as eating, toileting, getting dressed, road safety, stranger danger and understanding money and time. Following this very comprehensive assessment, we will review the report together, examining the results, conclusions and recommendations, and we will have the opportunity to discuss the outcomes and next steps together.
Who can we assess?
We can offer an assessment for children and young people of all ages. We have specialist assessments for infants and toddlers from 16-weeks of age, and we can provide detailed assessments for young children from 3-years to older teenagers, aged 18-years.
We may be able to offer assessments for children who have difficulty with communicating or are non-verbal, and we can work closely with school or other services if necessary.
What does a cognitive assessment involve?
We are proud to offer an exceptionally high quality assessment, using the most up-to-date technology and ‘gold-standard’ measures. We strongly believe in offering the most comprehensive and objective assessment.
A cognitive assessment is very thorough and we work hard to ensure that the assessment includes all the relevant information to ensure the outcome is the right one for your child.
1.
Initial Discussions
Our assessment begins with a very thorough developmental history. We will think about your child’s family and their experience of growing up. We will talk about school and how they have progressed from early years education through to the present day. We will discuss their social life, behavioural concerns and emotional wellbeing, and we will have an opportunity to hear your views about their day-to-day life.
2.
Our Gold-Standard Assessment
We will meet together over approximately 2 hours. During this time, we will ask your child to complete face-to-face puzzles, quizzes and paper and pencil tasks. These are exceptionally well-designed tools, and your child may find them fun and engaging. The purpose of these tasks is to assess your child’s intellectual and academic abilities. We will review your child’s verbal and non-verbal reasoning abilities, and their memory and speed of processing. We will assess their reading, spelling and mathematical abilities, in addition to an assessment of their verbal and non-verbal comprehension.
We are very proud to offer an exceptionally engaging approach for your child, with lots of flexibility, allowing time to build rapport and ensuring your child feels safe during the assessment.
3.
Adaptive Skills, Psychological Wellbeing and Other Reports
As part of our assessment, we will consider your child’s day-to-day functional skills (such as communicating, eating, toileting, getting dressed, road safety, stranger danger and understanding money and time). We will ensure that your child’s psychological wellbeing is understood. If you have any reports written by educational psychologists, teachers, or other professionals, or your child has completed assessments elsewhere, we will be able to review the reports to better understand what other professionals have concluded.
4.
Feedback and Report
Approximately one-week later, we will be able to review the results and the report together. We will discuss all aspects of your child’s assessment, including our conclusions and recommendations. We recommend that this appointment is completed without your child, but this is entirely your choice.
A written report will be provided, detailing all aspects of the assessment and results, including a wider understanding of what is going on for your child, and recommendations most appropriate for your child. There will also be an opportunity to request any amendments to the report.
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