How is a comprehensive literacy assessment different from psychoeducational testing?

If you’re looking for a diagnosis or label for your learner’s reading challenges, my services are not for you. I am not a doctor or clinician able to diagnose.

A diagnosis can be helpful in obtaining services for a child with the school, or addressing any medical needs that arise. It can also be helpful to look into things such as memory and processing that play a role in gaining all academic skills. But, a diagnosis or psychoeducational evaluation isn’t thorough enough to proceed with instruction.

When I have two students with dyslexia, this diagnosis tells me that I need to dive into their reading skills, but beyond that, the psychoeducational evaluation will not tell me which phonetic skills they struggle with. Do they know CVC words? What’s their nonphonetic, high frequency word skillset like? These are very educationally specific things that need to be measured in 1:1 settings, but have huge implications for effective instruction.

Again, getting a comprehensive psychoeducational or neuropsychological evaluation can be really important for your learner’s needs. But you still need to work with a professional to determine which specific skills need to be targeted for instruction. The psychoeducational or neuropsychological is the first step in discovering what the challenges are, but the next steps in remediating the deficits would be to invest in a plan for your child’s education.