Psycho Educational Assessment
Psycho-Educational Assessment
What Is A Psycho-Educational Assessment? How Will It Help?
A psycho-educational assessment usually involves a person completing a cognitive assessment and an academic assessment. Sometimes it also includes measuring other aspects like how a person is doing socially, emotionally, or behaviourally. A psycho-educational assessment usually involves a series of appointments and includes gathering background information, one-on-one testing with the client, the psychologist writing a report, and sharing information with clients.
Parents, teachers, and even adult learners sometimes seek a psycho-educational assessment in order to better understand factors that can affect how a person learns. People might get a psycho-educational assessment done to answer the following kinds of questions:
- Is there a learning disability?
- Is my child gifted?
- Do I/does my child have ADHD?
- Why is my child struggling in school?
- Why can’t I/my child remember things?
- What will help my child do better in school?
- What supports or accommodations do I need in college or university?
With a psycho-educational assessment, a person’s current learning profile is identified and then recommendations are made. The recommendations include things the person can do for themselves (e.g., strategies, counseling), what parents can do, and what the school or college or university can do to make life better and easier.
Would you or someone you love benefit from a psycho-educational assessment? Are you wondering if a psycho-educational assessment might be a good choice? Contact us at intake@rmpsychservices or 403-245-5981 to book an appointment with one of our assessment psychologists who can help to answer your questions and make a plan to meet your needs.
FAQ
Is Your Child Struggling In School? Have You Tried To Help Them But Aren’t Sure How To Proceed Or What Might Help?
A psychoeducational assessment is a formal assessment process that can help to identify why your child is struggling and from there, make targeted suggestions about strategies, what kind of school or educational approach might be a fit, or next steps that might help. A psychoeducational assessment can also help teachers to understand your child better, give teachers suggestions for strategies, or even access different supports for your child.
What does a psychoeducational assessment process look like?
There are no specific rules about what a psychoeducational assessment includes – psychologists, agencies or schools decide what their process looks like and what it includes. This can be confusing for parents because sometimes one psychoeducational assessment isn’t the same as another. Some include more in-depth assessment measures, and some are more basic. But, in general, a psychoeducational assessment will include a cognitive assessment (i.e., understanding how your child thinks, learns, processes information and some measure of their memory), academic assessment, and it may also include social/emotional/or behavioural evaluation. These measures compare how your child is doing on the questions compared to other children their age. This is helpful because the curriculum and expectations are based on what is typically manageable for a child their age. So, if things are easier or harder for your child than other children their age, this is a clue as to why they might be struggling at school.
The process of a psychoeducational assessment typically includes an initial interview to find out about the reason for referral, gather relevant background information, and discuss the process and what to expect. There may be a series of individual testing sessions. These are conducted one-on-one with the child and usually involve a number of activities. The activities are conducted in a standardized manner, which means that the assessor has to ask the questions or present the tasks in a specific way so that one child’s assessment results on the tasks can be compared to others. The assessor will also be taking note of other aspects during the sessions such as how the child responds to the tasks, how they interact, their focus and attention, etc. Parents and teachers or others may also provide information to the assessment by way of interview or questionnaires. From there, the psychologist will review the data, write a report, and meet with you to discuss the results.