WHY IS NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT IMPORTANT FOR EDUCATORS?
Recent laws for the handicapped encourage it.Educators have turned to neuropsychological assessment in an effort to comply with recent laws for the handicapped. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-142) and The Education and Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986 (Public Law 99-457) require schools to search for and serve all handicapped children who are three years old and older. The act and its amendments require educators to screen, assess, and identify children with learning disabilities early on so that these children can receive an education that is best-suited to their needs.
Schools today offer a wide range of programs.
Programs in most schools address a wide range of functioning levels from the severely developmentally disabled to the gifted or talented. For these programs to work effectively, the school psychologist must identify the learning strengths and weaknesses of each child so that the children will be placed in the educational environment that will help them reach their full learning potential. The more extensive the psychologist's repertoire of insightful tools, the more complete the evaluation. And, the more complete the evaluation, the more appropriate the child's placement.
Learning disabilities are difficult to identify.
Identifying learning disabled students has never been an easy task. Students' ability to acquire learning skills can be affected by many factors, ranging from physical make-up to home environment. It is possible that Johnny can't read because he has not been in school enough, has emotional problems that interfere with learning, is unable to listen to instruction, or has a brain dysfunction that prevents the acquisition of learning material through traditional methods. In order to separate the many overlapping factors and provide the most accurate diagnosis possible, the school psychologist must use the best diagnostic instruments available.
Children with subtle problems benefit most from neuropsychological assessment because they do not have severe disabilities that have obvious symptoms; yet, these children do not function best within the normal learning environment.
HOW DO SCHOOLS USE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT?
Just as the medical practitioner uses diagnostic tests to rule out or to corroborate diagnoses, the school psychologist assesses abilities using neuropsychological assessment. Most students are not formally assessed. If a teacher notices that a child seems to have learning problems, the teacher may modify teaching methods accordingly. If the student fails to respond, then more extensive assessment may be done to determine the best instructional approaches to meet the student's needs.WHAT ARE SOME LIMITATIONS OF NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT?
One of the advantages of neurological assessment is that it can accurately detect neurological damage or dysfunction without the need for obtrusive medical tests. However, some limitations should be kept in mind:- To perform neuropsychological assessments well, you must be a thoroughly trained professional.
- The results of a neuropsychological assessment are not an absolute score or completely accurate proof. You must use results along with data that are compiled from many different sources.
- Many experts question the validity of basic norms of neuropsychological assessment because the norms were originally derived from groups that were predominantly adults; only a very small sample of children were represented in the populations that were studied to produce the norms.
- Neuropsychological assessment batteries are long and extremely time consuming when used in their complete form.
This publication was prepared with funding from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education under contract number R88062003. The opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of OERI or the Department of Education. Permission is granted to copy and distribute this ERIC/TM Digest.
