School Readiness
Parents are often unsure if their children are ready to enter school or not. A School Readiness assessment will assist parent to make an informed decision as to apply for an extension of school admission, should their child be of compulsory school going age, but not yet fully school ready!
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School readiness involves an assessment of a child’s cognitive development, in order to ensure that they are ready to cope and progress with the school’s curriculum. School readiness also involves the assessment of their physical, perceptual, and sensory-motor development, as well as their socio-emotional development, in order to determine if they are ready to meet the demands for formal schooling.
An assessment of this nature will enable the parents to seek out timely assistance where appropriate, and interventions may include play-therapy to facilitate socio-emotional development and adjustment, as well as referral to other professionals, including occupational therapists and speech therapists and audiologists. Where an extension of school admission is sought, Parents will be assisted with the application process through the applicable educational department.
Psycho-educational assessments
Psycho-educational assessments are conducted by registered practitioners and in addition to showing how a child learns, also assists to identify barriers to learning, and provide insight if and how they’re struggling. It measures overall aptitude and academic achievement around core skills, such as reading, writing and math. It may also assist to provide a diagnosis of a specific learning disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), intellectual disability, and identify any other social/emotional/behavioural or psychological problems, that may be evident and contribute to your child’s difficulties to learn and progress academically.
The most important result of a psychoeducational assessment are the comprehensive recommendations for home and school-based interventions, the development of individualised educational programmes to accommodate your child’s needs, helping them progress and succeed. It may also include referrals for additional assistance and support such as occupational therapy and speech, language therapy and audiology, and placement in appropriate specialised educational classes and institutions where appropriate.
Concession and Accommodation Assessments
A concession or accommodation assessment is used to determine if learners or students that experience barriers to learning and assessments, require certain support or accommodations to help them achieve their potential, and are usually done during their high school education. Concession applications for Grade 12 examinations must submitted during the learner’s Grade 11 year. Furthermore, once learners go on to tertiary level education, continued concession support is available to them.
Concessions and accommodations are granted once learners have been assessed and show at least an average intellectual ability and a significant long-term learning disability which will compromise examination performance. Applications for Concessions and Accommodations to be submitted to a relevant educational department, or higher education institutions, need to be accompanied Psycho-Educational Assessment report with recommendations in support of the application, as well as other supportive documents and evidence.
Medico-legal Assessments
A medico-legal assessment is an assessment which has been commissioned by a court in order to be used as evidence for medico-legal matters. Psychologists provide the court with objective, unbiased opinions on matters within educational and child psychology based on all material facts.
In the field of educational psychology this will often involve determining possible pre-accident levels of education; present cognitive potential and current scholastic & academic progress abilities; ascertaining the possibility of future training or tertiary education for an individual who has been involved in a motor vehicle accident; and evaluating how the accident under consideration may have influenced an individual’s future options & cognitive functioning negatively. Such assessments are not limited to individuals who have been in accidents themselves, but also include assessments in determining educational potential; evaluating the possibility of future training or tertiary education; and ascertaining how the accident under consideration may have influenced an individual in a Loss of Support claim.