Learning and dyslexia assessments for children and teenagers in London
A comprehensive learning assessment, sometimes called a cognitive assessment, is a useful part of the puzzle when trying to figure out how your child’s brain works. It can be completed on its own, or as part of a diagnostic assessment, e.g. ADHD or Autism.
A learning assessment allows our clinicians to learn about how your child’s brain works, in particular what their pattern of strengths and weaknesses are with learning. This is extremely useful when figuring out what is going on for your child and giving recommendations for school and home.
Our learning assessments are thorough enough to diagnose dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia, as well as intellectual disabilities. We of course will draw out a pattern of stengths and weaknesses including identifying gifted children.
We can do assessments with our Educational Psychologist to support Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). We have never had an assessment of ours turned down by an EHCP panel for use as evidence.
They can also be used as evidence for American school and college admissions. We use the specific tests that are commonly requested as part of the admissions process.
A learning assessment is a detailed IQ test, but as well as an overall ability score, the results are broken down into specific categories such as:
- Processing speed
- Working memory
- Verbal comprehension
- Perceptual reasoning
- Visual spatial ability
- Maths ability
- Reading ability
- Writing ability
- Comprehension
- Dyslexia
Depending on your child’s age, different tests will be used. Cognitive tests have been studied on tens of thousands of children of all different ages, so you’ll be able to see how your child performs in different areas compared to children of their exact same age. Parents and teachers say this is very helpful as we often find that a child who is very able in one area is often less able in another, and their learning needs go unrecognised because they mostly “get by”. The exact tests to be used will be discussed with you at the start of your child’s assessment to make sure they are fully relevant. Don’t worry, these assessments are mostly completed on iPads and young people tend to find them fun.
Why might my child need a learning assessment for school?
Many parents and teachers say that knowing how a child learns is crucial to making life easier and less stressful at home and at school.
We commonly see children who have “spiky” profiles, meaning they are quite above average in some areas and either average or below average in other areas. They often make up for their weaknesses with their significant strengths in other areas. However certain situations or tasks do not allow them to mask their difficulties and it is in those situations that we tend to see problems emerging. Knowing how a child thinks and processes information is really helpful for helping to plan how they can improve, but also adapting the environment to suit their needs.
The benefits of knowing about your child’s memory capacity, or processing speed, or verbal comprehension, can be seen in both the home and school context. We can then advise how to make learning easier for your child and make them better able to follow instructions.
Children diagnosed with difficulties such as dyslexia can received very tailored support to make sure they are able to thrive
How much does a learning assessment cost?
All learning assessment include a detailed report, school liaison and a plan of support.
A clinician will work with you to figure out the purpose of the assessment and then will tell you which tests are most recommended and what each one is.
Comprehensive learning assessment including IQ, learning stengths and weaknesses, analysis of specific learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia): £1995
Note: You can find dyslexia assessments cheaper, completed by specialist teachers. We find these assessments to be basic and brief as teachers can only use a very small numbers of non-standardised tests. All of our assessments are carried out by HCPC registered clinicians e.g. an educational psychologist or clinical psychologist and the assessment tools used give a much clearer indication of what is going on for your child and therefore a much better support plan. Our assessments can be used as evidence for EHCP applications as well as supporting adjustments at school.
