Psychoeducational evaluations are conducted while keeping in mind the relationship between the person being tested and his/her/their academic environment. They are usually used to help identify someone’s school-related needs (e.g., special education, accommodations, etc.) and help them perform in school. Language testing is also conducted because of the important relationship between language and academics. For instance, difficulties with general language comprehension can affect someone’s understanding of lectures, engagement in conversations, or memory, but it can also affect their understanding of reading because reading is simply written language. These evaluations include:

Intelligence testing (i.e., IQ testing)

Academic testing

  • basic reading skills and reading fluency

  • reading comprehension

  • spelling

  • written grammar and formulation

  • math computation

  • word problems

Language processing:

  • vocabulary knowledge

  • syntax (grammar)

  • word retrieval (i.e., recalling words you already know)

  • content and organization

  • social use of language (pragmatics)