Neuropsychological Data and Academic Assessments
How Neuropsychological and Educational Assessments Differ
A neuropsychological assessment is conducted to investigate the cognitive and neurocognitive factors that may lead to descriptions of patterns of behavior in the community. Areas such as home-life, school behaviors, and family dynamics are typically examined and changes attributable to the head trauma are reported for children with ABI. Neuropsychological assessments include measures of intelligence, which purport to estimate long-term functioning and potential for success in school and employability. For students with ABI, neuropsychological assessments set out to determine whether a changed cognitive, behavioral or emotional profile has resulted from the trauma. Although neuropsychological assessments examine a student’s information processing abilities, and describe skills such as memory, attention, and language processing compared to normal trends, they are not typically designed to describe the patient broadly as a student.
Educational assessments are designed to outline clearly how a student is likely to cope with specific demands of the school curriculum, and how instructional intervention can facilitate a student’s coping with these demands. Educational assessments provide a picture of the academic skills and knowledge that the student has thus far acquired, and they measure the difference between current functioning and expected functioning based on age, grade, or ability. Academic assessments make concrete programming recommendations for addressing skill weaknesses in the classroom and through individualized instruction. As such, they detail systematic methods of advancing the academic skills vitiated by specific cognitive dysfunctions attributable to head trauma.
Integrating Neuropsychological Data into Academic Assessments
When conducting assessments for students with ABI, both types of assessments are necessary, since there is little overlap in the areas they assess. One provides a picture of how a student is likely to cope with academic demands and becomes the basis for a treatment plan; the other posits possible reasons for those strengths and weaknesses in terms of neuropsychological functioning (e.g., memory, attention, language, etc.). The academic assessment describes; the neuropsychological assessment attempts to explain and predict, though implication, areas of processing that may be problematic in school settings. Effective academic rehabilitation plans are enhanced by the availability of neuropsychological assessment data, but treatment plans cannot be designed in the absence of academic assessment data.
