Learning 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.
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
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.
How much does a learning assessment cost?
All learning assessment include a detailed report, school liaison where needed and a plan of support.
Each learning assessment is unique to each child, so will need to be discussed and planned in advance.
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.
Whilst this is not a set cost, you can expect a learning assessment to cost around £1250. This could be higher or lower depending on the age of your child and what they need.
Your clinician will break down the cost for you so that you can see what you are getting.
