Understanding Cognitive Skills Testing
Understanding Cognitive Skills Profiles
Cognitive skills testing helps identify whether weak cognitive skills are present, which may be keeping a student from achieving his or her full potential. Expected cognitive skill abilities change based upon age. Results can be affected by various circumstances. If the subject was stressed, did not understand the instructions, or was distracted, the results may not accurately reflect the true cognitive skills abilities of that person.
Simply providing an IQ score that represents an average or composite score does not reveal the presence of one or more weak cognitive skills.
The scores report include Long-Term Memory, Short-Term Working Memory, Visual Processing, Logic & Reasoning, Processing Speed, Auditory Processing, Attentional Capacity, and English Word Attack skills.
The purpose of the test results is not to diagnose or label. It is intended to:
Indicate relative cognitive skill strengths and weaknesses.
Understand a potential reason/cause of a learning problem.
Compare changes in cognitive skills over time.
Measure the effectiveness of skill intervention.
Determine the best intervention to bring weaker skills to productive levels.
Guide future life choices.
Understanding the testing language used in Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities and the Kaufman Tests of Education and Achievement (KTEA-3):
Long-Term Memory- The Visual-Auditory Learning test measures long-term retrieval and associative memory by learning and recalling picture representations of words
Working Memory - The Numbers Reversed test measures attentional capacity, attentional control, and working memory by listening to and recalling a sequence of digits in reverse order.
Visual Processing- The Visualization test measures spatial relations and visual processing by testing the ability to perceive, analyze, synthesize, and think with visual patterns.
Logic & Reasoning - The Concept Formation test measures inductive reasoning and inference by identifying, categorizing, and determining rules for visual drawings.
Processing Speed- The Letter-Pattern Matching test measures processing speed by testing the ability to perform automatic cognitive tasks under pressure by discrimination visual symbols and identifying common patterns.
Auditory Processing - The Phonological Processing test measures auditory processing and speed to lexical access by testing the ability to manipulate English language speech sounds (also referred to as phonemes).
Word Attack - The ability to read and decode nonsense or made up words.
Definitions:
Age Equivalent: The student’s score is stated based upon the average score in the age range of <5 to >18. If the subject is older than 16, no age equivalent score is given.
Standard Score: The standard score is determined from the percentile score using a psychometric conversion table.
Percentile Rank: Compared to 100 subjects, percentile indicates the number of subjects that are equal to or below the same score.
Functional Range: This bar describes the how well the test taker is currently functioning on each cognitive skill based on their percentile. It differs from the statistical descriptor of each percentile rank in the grid. Instead, it illustrates the range of possible scores with labels that estimate day to day functioning in each area.
Woodcock Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities - Skills Tested
IQ
Comprehension
Fluid Reasoning
Short-Term Working Memory
Long-Term Retrieval
Executive Processing
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