Standardized tests exist in many forms; there are hundreds of tests designed to measure a broad range of people’s attributes and skills, such as visual-motor integration, attention, adaptive functioning, mental health symptomology, work aptitude, personality characteristics. Psychoeducational testing is a process which utilizes standardized tests and questionnaires in an effort to identify a student’s strengths and weaknesses across many areas of functioning and attributes. These areas include but are not limited to the following:

=Cognitive Development

=Academic Achievement

=Adaptive Functioning

=Visual Perception

=Motor Coordination

=Visual-Motor Integration

=Behavior (e.g., Attention, Aggression, etc.)

=Emotion (e.g., Anxiety, Depression, etc.)

Psychoeducational testing is conducted on an individual basis. Since the examiner, in a controlled testing situation, is able to monitor the examinee’s level of effort, individually-administered tests provide more valid estimates of the individual’s skills as compared to group-administered tests. Often, a child’s performances will be better in an individual testing situation than his/her performances in the classroom. 

With this in mind, it is important to remember that the purpose of individualized testing is to provide the most valid respresentation of the child’s actual skill levels. In an less controlled environment, such as the classroom, many extraneous factors (e.g., visual and auditory distractions) can prevent a child from performing optimally.