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If your child or teen recently had or is about to have a psychological assessment done, you may have some questions about it. While the original professional who did or is doing the assessment is the best person to answer your questions, here is some information that could be helpful with the following questions.
What does a psychological assessment involve?
What does a psychological assessment involve?
A psychological assessment is done to gather information about a student's learning profile, including their strengths and areas where they have difficulty. Along with background information from parents/caregivers, the students themselves, and school staff and observations of the student, tests are done to look at their educational and psychological skills, including intelligence, memory, achievement, and social and emotional abilities. Sometimes, one or more diagnoses are made based on the results. The report provides recommendations for educational planning and community services, and can help with decisions about identification and placement.
What is included in an assessment report?
What is included in an assessment report?
Background information:
In this part of the report, information that was shared by the student, parent/caregiver, staff, or is in an Ontario Student Record is described.
This helps understand the history of the student's needs and identifies supports that have already been tried.
Measures:
A list of the tests used.
The measures used are typically standardized, meaning a large, diverse group of students has taken the tests to establish what is considered average, below average, or above average. This allows us compare a child's scores to those of many other students.
Most of the measures used are norm-referenced, meaning that a student’s performance is compared to others their age.
Results are usually reported in standard scores (e.g., the average score of the norm group is set to a specific value, usually 100) or percentiles (e.g., a percentile of 50 means the student performed as well as or better than 50% of their peers; most scores fall between the 25th and 75th percentiles).
Observations:
The student's behaviour is observed while working with the practitioner.
In class observations or observations during recess or lunch are done when appropriate.
Cognitive functioning:
Testing is done to look at the student's cognitive functioning.
This includes overall intelligence and problem solving, but also processing areas such as:
Social-emotional functioning:
Measures are done to look at students' general social and emotional functioning.
More specific testing is done when needed.
Adaptive functioning:
Depending on student needs, measures are done to look at their adaptive functioning.
Adaptive functioning is how well someone manages everyday tasks and social interactions needed for independent living. It includes skills like:
personal care
safety
daily living
social skills
school and work
Summary and potential diagnoses:
This section puts all the information together to discuss what it means.
For some children, this might mean getting a diagnosis.
No diagnosis is given if the results don't support it.
Recommendations:
Finally, recommendations are made to help you support your child.
This can include suggestions for community or school board services.
Programming recommendations are made as well.
For more information, please see:
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