Psychometric Assessments for Children: A Comprehensive Overview

Psychometric assessments are valuable tools used to evaluate a child's cognitive abilities, academic skills, and overall potential. At GPRP, we offer two main categories of assessments to provide a thorough understanding of a child's intellectual and educational needs.

Cognitive Assessments

Cognitive tests (i.e. IQ tests) measure intellectual ability - two for children and one for 16 years and over. They examine your child’s ability to solve problems, their processing speed and their ability to mentally manipulate information.

Results provide a description your child’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses. They also give an overview of your child’s intellectual potential when interpreted alongside other factors (e.g. the outcome of educational assessments).

There are 3 types of tests that can be administered, depending on your child’s age:

• Wechsler Preschool and Primary School Intelligence Test (WPPSI-IV) – administered to children aged 2 years 6 months to 7 years 7 months.

• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V) – administered to children between the ages of 6 and 16.

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) - administered to individuals aged 16 years and older.

These types of assessments are commonly administered to:

• Assess your child for giftedness.

• Diagnose your child with a learning difficulty or disability.

• Assess if your child has intellectual difficulty or an intellectual disability

Educational assessments are often an essential next step, following cognitive testing.

Tests of general academic ability are typically given to children in conjunction with a general intelligence test. They look at your child’s academic skills. More specifically, they examines mathematics, reading, written language and oral skills.

Results of such tests – in addition to general intelligence tests – give a picture of your child’s overall cognitive ability. If there is a big difference between the results of the two tests, there may be an issue and your psychologist will examine this further.

The following test is used to assess academic ability:

• Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT).

The results of educational assessments will assist teachers, in addition to parents/caregivers. Understanding a child’s individual learning needs helps to reveal their learning style. This is key when implementing adjustments in the classroom – e.g. extension activities, acceleration subject or special provisions during exams etc. Such adjustments can vastly improve a child’s wellbeing, specifically in terms of their self-esteem.