Psychometric Assessments – Children & Adolescents
Learning Difficulties/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Assessments
Please note that the test battery below is a general guideline and orientation to the test process only. The actual test battery and areas to be assessed will be finalised according to each client’s specific referring concern with the psychologist during the intake interview.
Testing Process (what to expect)?
- Intake interview with the parents to establish the exact requirements specific to your child.
- Assessment evaluation: 6 to 8 hours (testing guideline only)
- Compilation of report
- Feedback session with parents
What tests can be used to evaluate my child in an educational assessment?
Intelligence Tests:
- Local: Senior South African Individual Scales – Revised (SSAIS-R)
- International: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)
Reading Ability:
- Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT) – Reading Comprehension
- Edinburgh Reading Test
- Neale Analysis of Reading Ability
- ESSI Reading
- Speed & Graded Reading Tests
Specific Scholastic areas of concern:
- WIAT : Spelling
- WIAT: Mathematics
- WIAT: Written Expression
- ESSI Spelling
- UCT Mathematics 1 minute tests
- VASSI Mathematics Proficiency Test
- Dsylexia Screening Tests
Motor Perceptual Skills
- Beery-Buktenica Developmental Tests:
Among the Beery subtests, the Visual Motor Integration (VMI) test assesses the child’s retention and extension of learning. The test of Visual Perception (VP) assesses visual acuity whilst the Eye-Motor Coordination (MC) test assesses the child’s ability to control finger and hand movements. Visual-Motor integration skills are essential to the learning process and can influence the mastering of reading, spelling and mathematics.
- Visual-Motor Integration (VMI)
- Visual Perception (VMI-VP)
- Eye-Motor Co-ordination (VMI-MC)
Attention
- Test of Everyday Attention for Children (Tea-Ch)
The TEA-Ch has been standardized and normed for children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 16. It is particularly relevant for use with children with diagnosed or suspected attention difficulties, in more clearly identifying the patterns of attentional problems they may have and informing treatment and management programs.
The following domains are evaluated by the Tea-Ch:
- Selective Attention – the efficiency with which the child can filter information in order to detect relevant information and reject (inhibit) irrelevant or distracting information.
- Sustained Attention – is the capacity with which the child can self-maintain an actively attentive stance to a task, goal or their own behaviour despite there being little inherent stimulation for such continued processing. Situations that would make strong demands on the sustained attention factor would include: staying with a task despite it being boring; repetition; waiting for long periods before anything happens.
- Sustained-Divided Attention – is the child having the ability to monitor their own attentional ability (for example, “Am I giving too much attention to this aspect of the task while ignoring another important goal?”) Often children who perform each aspect of the task reasonably well in isolation find it difficult to combine the two tasks.
- Sustained Attention/Response Inhibition – refers to the child’s ability to sustain attention to their own actions and intentions and to be able to actively resist (response inhibition) impulsive action.
- Attentional Control/Switching – refers to the child’s ability to switch from doing one task in order to begin another, or switching the way they are performing a specific task. This ability has been associated with higher level executive functioning.
Emotional
- Beck Youth Inventory
- Children’s Depression Inventory
- Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale
- Projective techniques such as the Children’s Apperception Test (CAT), Draw A Person and Kinetic Family Drawing