ASSESSMENT
Assessment of children includes a detailed clinical evaluation followed by standard psychometric
assessments of child’s cognitive abilities and academic skills
A) Outline of Clinical Evaluation:
• Presenting complaints and their progression
• History of any behavioral or emotional problems
• Schooling history –school attendance, classroom behavior, any change of school, any change
of curriculum, The type of academic difficulties, whether any intervention or
accommodations in school for the same, impact of the interventions etc.
• Family history of any neurodevelopmental disorders or psychiatric illness or neurological
disorders
• Family life and relationships
• Medical history
• History of any evaluation and intervention
• Family’s awareness and perception of the child’s problems
• Behavioral observation & mental status examination of the child Informal assessment of
reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic skills Physical examination of the child especially
neurological and sensory system examination Screening for common co-morbid disorders
including ADHD, ODD, Depression and Anxiety Disorders
• Report from class teacher
B) Psychometric testing:
Psychometric testing helps in confirmation of diagnosis and in planning the intervention. The
psychometric testing usually includes testing for cognitive abilities and testing for academic abilities.
Assessment of the child’s level of Intelligence by measuring IQ can be done using Standardized IQ
tests.
The tests that can be used include:
• Binet-Kamat Test (BKT)
• Malin’s Intelligence Scale for Indian Children (MISIC) developed by Dr. Arthur Malin in the
year 1966. which is the Indian adaptation of the WISC- that is Wechsler’s Intelligence Scale
for Children, an American test developed by David Wechsler.
• Wechsler’s Intelligence Scale for Children-4th Edition (WISC-IV).
MISIC will provide Performance IQ, Verbal subscale IQ and Fullscale IQ. In children with SLD,
there is a discrepancy between verbal and performance IQs with the performance IQ usually being
higher. Another pattern named “ACID-profile” has been described where children may score low on
subtests of Arithmetic, Coding, Information and Digit-span. WISC IV often reveals weaknesses in
verbal comprehension, working memory, and processing speed.
MISIC has 11 subtests, 6 verbal tests and 5 performance tests, the test can be used for children who
are aged between 5 years 11 months to 14 years 11 months, and if they are fluent in English, and can
comprehend and answer in English; if not, we can conduct SBIT- Stoelting Brief Intelligence Test (S-
BIT), which is completely nonverbal, it does not require the child to read, write, speak, or listen to
any material. The examiner pantomimes the instructions and the individual responds by pointing or
placing a card in the appropriate position. The items include a variety of problem-solving tasks
increasing in complexity and difficulty.
If the child comes from a vernacular background, then we can use BKT.
After assessment of IQ, tests to evaluate academic abilities need to be administered. These include:
• NIMHANS Index for SLD
• Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT)
• Test of written language (TOWL-4)
• Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT)
• Woodcock-Johnson III/IV Tests of achievements (WJ-III)
• Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (K-TEA)
• Peabody Individual Achievement Test-Revised (PIAT-R)
• Aston Index Battery.
The National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore has developed the index
to assess children with LD (Hirisave U, et al., 2002).
There are two levels of this index.
They are:
• Level I for children 5-7 years
• Level II for 8-12 years.
The index comprises of the following tests:
Tests in Level I are:
1) Visuo-motor skills (Copying of three geometrical figures)
2) Writing of Capital letters
3) Writing of small letters
4) Writing of an alphabet preceding a specified alphabet
5) Writing of an alphabet succeeding the specified alphabet
6) Writing of numbers serially
7) Writing of numbers preceding a specified number
8) Writing of numbers succeeding a specified number
9) Color cancellation test
10) Visual discrimination
11) Visual memory
12) Auditory discrimination
13) Auditory memory
14) Speech/Language (both receptive and expressive)
The tests in Level II are:
1) Number cancellation
2) Reading of English passages
3) Spelling of English words (including Schonell’s 15 words list)
4) Reading comprehension of English passages
5) Arithmetic subtest
6) Bender Gestalt test for Visuo-spatial abilities
