An undiagnosed Learning Disability can result in multiple frustrations. Your child may be struggling with completing work on time or mastering age appropriate academic skills. Your child may be less interested in school, refusing to complete work or disrupting their class. The underlying problem may be an undiagnosed learning disability and or an attentional problem. Remember, a child is not merely an under sized adult. A comprehensive learning disability assessment requires specific training and expertise. Since many learning disabilities are brain-based, an understanding of the child’s performances across academic, achievement, aptitude, and neuropsychological abilities provides parents and teachers with accurate diagnoses as well as appropriate treatment strategies and school based interventions.

What is a Learning Disability Evaluation?

A Learning Disability Evaluation consists of a battery of tests that provides information about a child’s overall intellectual abilities, learning style, information processing abilities and academic skills. A full Learning Disability Evaluation assesses overall intellectual abilities with a standardized IQ test such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-V (WISC-V) which helps to identify cognitive strengths and weaknesses. An IQ test provides vital information regarding a child’s ability to process verbally and visually presented information. A full Learning Disability Evaluation also provides information regarding basic attention, visual spatial, working memory issues, language functions, and processing speed. School based achievement skills are evaluated as well, in specific academic areas such as reading, comprehension, written language, and math. Our clinicians employ standardized achievement tests, such as the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, to provide information regarding:

• Listening Comprehension
• Reading Comprehension
• Word Reading
• Phonetics
• Oral Expression
• Oral Reading Fluency
• Mathematical Problem Solving
• Math Fluency-Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication

The Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment, otherwise known as the NEPSY, may also be included in a Learning Disability evaluation to provide supplemental information about the neuropsychological development in children ages 3–16 years. The NEPSY was designed to assess both basic and complex aspects of cognition critical to children’s ability to learn and be productive, in and outside of, school settings and it tests cognitive functions not typically covered by general ability or achievement batteries. The subtests were designed to assess cognitive abilities related to disorders that are typically diagnosed in childhood and that are required for success in an academic environment.

• Attention and Executive Functions – inhibition, self-regulation, monitoring, vigilance, selective and sustained attention, maintenance of response set, planning, flexibility in thinking and figural fluency
• Language and Communication – phonological processing, receptive language, expressive naming, verbal fluency and rhythmic oral motor sequences
• Sensorimotor Functions – tactile sensory input, fine motor speed, imitative hand functions, rhythmic and sequential movements and visuomotor precision
• Visuospatial Functions – the ability to judge position and directionality, copying of 2-dimensional and the reconstruction of 3-dimensional designs
• Learning and Memory – memory for words, sentences and faces, immediate and delayed list learning, memory for names and narrative memory under free- and cued-recall conditions.
• Social Perception (added in the NEPSY-II) – the ability to recognize emotions, to guess what another person is thinking and feeling, empathy

In addition to test data, all evaluations include a clinical interview with parent and child, as well as questionnaires and rating scales that are traditionally completed by parents, teachers, and the student. This data coupled with a comprehensive emotional assessment, helps the psychologist to identify whether attentional and/or emotional issues might be contributing to or resulting from the learning difficulties.

What kind of information can I expect following a Learning Disability Evaluation?

• Accurate description of overall academic skills.
• Identification of academic and intellectual strengths and weaknesses.
• Identification of other possible areas of difficulty such as underlying language deficits.
• Identification of the need for a speech language or auditory assessment.
• Identification and treatment of emotional or social problems.
• Diagnoses and treatment of attentional problems.
• Finalization of diagnosis and interventions.
• Academic Accommodations.
• Further treatment recommendations.

Parents have a mandated right to have their child evaluated for a learning disability. When there is a statistically significant discrepancy between measures of intellectual and academic performance, a diagnosis of a learning disability may be clinically indicated, as well as specific compensations and accommodations within the classroom or school. The clinicians at Shore Neuropsychology Learning Disability and Brain Training Center will work with your teacher or school guidance center to ensure accurate and informative testing results and effective classroom remediation.