The Rainbow Therapy Practice offers highly specialist neuropsychological assessments for children and young people.
A cognitive/ neuropsychological assessment investigates a child’s learning, academic potential and daily living skills. Cognitive functions include assessment of intellect, memory, phonological skills, academic abilities, attention, executive function, processing speed and visuospatial skills. The aim of the cognitive assessment is to identify a child’s strengths and weaknesses in their learning profiles. Specific weaknesses can affect a child psychologically and educationally in school and so an assessment will help put in place support, adaptations and strategies.
Where appropriate, children may be diagnosed with difficulties such as Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia or Dyspraxia or specific delays with working memory or information processing, and may be entitled to additional support within the classroom, or special provision for examinations.
Children diagnosed with developmental delays, or specific difficulties, are often entitled to additional support within the classroom, or special provision for examinations. Knowing these problems exist and how to deal with them is often enough to get children back on track educationally. It may also help you in selecting a school placement that would best meet your child’s needs.
Assessments can diagnose:
- Dyslexia
- Dyscalculia
- Dysgraphia
- Developmental Coordination Disorder (Dyspraxia)
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Memory problems
- General global learning difficulties
- Giftedness
What happens as part of the assessment?
- Clinical interview – understanding the main strengths and weaknesses.
- Psychometric assessment – games, tests and puzzles on iPad and paper and pen.
- Liaison with school – understanding the impact of difficulties on academic or workplace performance.
- Neuropsychological report – this outlines the findings of the assessment and makes tailored recommendations for school, work and home as appropriate
- Feedback session – to discuss the report and its main findings and recommendations.
What can you expect when you come for the cognitive assessment?
We recommend that parents are not present during the assessment itself. Most children work better when unaccompanied. If you choose to be present, we will ask you to sit behind your child so that they do not have eye contact with you, and ask that you do not help them in any way with their responses. We are aware that it can be frustrating if your child does not answer a question you believe they know, but we ask that you do not comment if this happens. You should allow at least half a day for each cognitive assessment. Your child will be able to have breaks during the assessment. We will not be able to tell you how your child has performed on the day, as we will need time to score up the responses and write the assessment report.
A full cognitive assessment includes 3-4 hours of testing with the child or young person, a parent meeting, liaison with your child’s school and a 30 mins feedback meeting conducted via the telephone. You should expect to receive a copy of your child’s assessment report within 3-4 weeks.
This assessment is very comprehensive and ideal for spotting a whole range of problems including, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia (numeric difficulties) alongside dyspraxia. It will also highlight issues with processing speed, working memory, verbal reasoning, spatial skills and much more.
The report also includes diagnostic comments and detailed suggestions and guides for remediation.
Which other professionals will you contact?
We ask your permission to contact other professionals who are involved in your child’s care, such as their school teacher, SENCO, speech and language therapist or Occupational Therapist. They will be asked about your child’s strengths and difficulties and the support they are currently receiving. This helps to collect information relevant to the assessment and also informs the recommendations that will be made. We will also ask to see any previous Educational psychology reports and reports from health professionals.
What will happen after the assessment with my child?
We will invite you to another appointment to talk you through the report and explain the findings around 2 weeks after the assessment. Depending upon the age of your child, we may ask you to bring them to this appointment.
What will the report be like?
The assessment report will give a comprehensive account of how your child scored on each of the tests and also overall on the various areas. The results are calculated by comparing how your child performed with how you would expect a child of their age to do. At the end of the report will be a summary of the findings and a list of recommendations.
Who gets a copy of the assessment report?
The report is a confidential document that will only be sent out with your approval. However, for the assessment process to be worthwhile, it is important that copies of the report are sent to the professionals involved with your child, such as their class teacher or school SENCo. In this way, those working with your child will have a greater understanding of your child’s strengths and weaknesses, and recommendations made can be acted on.
Will you be able to diagnose difficulties such as Dyslexia and Dyscalculia?
Yes. As part of the comprehensive assessment we assess for specific learning difficulties such as Dyslexia/ Dyscalculia as well as other specific learning difficulties. We will be able to provide you with evidence-based strategies to support your child at home and provide recommendations to school to enable your child to access the correct support within school.
