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IQ and Learning Difficulties Assessment
When we talk about learning difficulties, we’re talking about a range of challenges related to key academic areas, such as reading (dyslexia), writing (dysgraphia) or maths (dyscalculia). A cognitive assessment, including IQ assessment, can help to identify these challenges.
About this assessment
If your child is experiencing learning difficulties, it can impact their self-esteem and academic success. While the exact causes are unknown, learning difficulties tend to be biological and run in families. With early identification and intervention, we can support you and your child to feel empowered at school with the best ways to adjust learning to meet their different styles of learning.
Keep in mind that we can only make a diagnosis of a Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) when a child has received six months of targeted intervention for their specific learning difficulty.
Designed for:
- Primary school aged (5-12 years), adolescents (13-18 years)
- Diagnoses:
- Reading difficulties (dyslexia), including phonological awareness problems, which can also extend to writing and spelling problems.
- Writing and spelling challenges (dysgraphia), such as struggling to form letters on a page, spelling mistakes, not knowing how to use punctuation or facing challenges with organising their writing
- Maths challenges (dyscalculia), including difficulty understanding numerical concepts like money and time and challenges with grasping mathematical equations (like the meaning of numerical signs)
Gain support to succeed at school
When children experience learning difficulties that are undiagnosed, they can begin to believe they are stupid, which is not the case at all. They can disengage from learning and can develop low self-esteem. It’s important for children to have the right support in school that gives them the opportunity to experience success, despite their different ways of learning.
A comprehensive approach leads to better outcomes
This assessment is also a valuable way to access the appropriate accommodations and services your child might need—such as what school exam provisions might be helpful, any allowances for the use of sensory tools and what therapy might be useful, from psychology to speech or even occupational therapy.
This assessment at a glance
Enquire
An intake coordinator will assess your concerns and walk you through the best assessment for your child’s needs. This may be a single clinical assessment (if there are only one or two areas of concern) or a multidisciplinary assessment (if your child is navigating multiple concerns, like communication difficulties, emotional outbursts and social differences).
Pre-assessment questionnaires
Our team will share standardised questionnaires to understand if there are any attention difficulties or mood challenges (such as anxiety) that may be additionally impacting your child’s learning. We’ll request copies of recent school reports and national test results to assess performance across literacy and numeracy. We like to gain input from you (parents) as well as their teachers to assess their behaviour across contexts.
Assessment day
The assessment day (3-4 hours) is designed to understand your child’s cognitive profile, including their strengths and weaknesses and how these may be impacting their learning. We’ll use a range of cognitive assessments, activities and observations to assess attentional measures (such as difficulties with concentration). Plus, we’ll use academic testing tailored to your child and other assessments to assess their ability to read, write and crunch numbers.
Functional capacity assessment
We’ll ensure we understand your child’s abilities across several areas (such as communication, daily living skills, motor skills and social skills) to assess functioning holistically.
Multidisciplinary team results review
Our team will review the assessment results, and if your child meets certain criteria, a diagnosis will be made. Factors contributing to the presenting concern will be addressed.
Feedback session
Feedback will be provided on the day or another day following the assessment. Your final report (hard copy and digital copy versions) with be provided with a clear set of tailored recommendations.
Throughcare
We will do our best to support you to find the help that has been recommended. Sometimes we can provide this for you but other times we may need to refer you to another service. Either way, we will support you through your journey in any way we can.
Meet CHAMPS
We know that cookie-cutter, traditional assessment methods don’t offer the best outcomes for kids. That’s why we developed ChAMPS (Child & Adolescent Multidisciplinary Private Service), our multidisciplinary team for the assessment of complex childhood development needs.
In our experience, developmental differences show up across several areas and a comprehensive assessment is the best way to understand if a child is neurodivergent and/or has complex needs to support their development. We ensure multiple clinicians from different disciplines are in the one location on the same day to observe and assess your child, with our multidisciplinary team working together to create a holistic plan for ongoing support to ensure your child reaches their potential.
Plus, we explore your child’s ability to complete daily tasks (from communicating to self-care and learning) and we offer tailored interventions and supports to help them achieve independence. These recommendations are aligned with how the NDIS assesses the support needs and funding allocations of individuals with disabilities or neurodevelopmental conditions, such as Autism.
Book Now
Complete this brief Online Intake Questionnaire (2 mins) to speed up the process for booking your initial appointment at Marsden Health. We will contact you as soon as it’s complete.