The holidays of All Saints approach and with them, the first notes of our children and sometimes surprises, good or less good. Moreover, we had already wondered in the past if "it was normal" to have these notes, if "the others" also had difficulty to follow in certain subjects, if the teachers were really objective and if we should not "go a step further" to try to understand. Yes, a little further, but, where exactly ...?
When a child has particular difficulties that persist over time, it may be helpful to try to understand the cause. A psychological assessment can find the origin of the difficulties and propose the best solution.
What is a psychological assessment?
A psychological assessment is an evaluation of the child that includes an intellectual part (scales of Wechsler or even test of IQ) and a psycho-emotional part (tests which will give an idea of the personality of the child). It allows to know a child beyond his academic difficulties, to better understand how it works. Intelligence is a complex notion, which comes in several nuances: we are not "intelligent" or "not smart", but we each have our areas of expertise, with our strengths and weaknesses. And the intellectual development of the child must always be related to its psychological evolution because the learning is necessarily in an emotional context. Remember when you were little how much you enjoyed learning to please your parents or your mistress or more ... to feel loved.
The psychological assessment is the most reliable evaluation tool to allow the various interlocutors concerned (parents, school, professionals ...) to initiate a new dynamic. It is a true portrait of the functioning of a child, at a given moment of his career.
A psychological evaluation is for whom?
A report is addressed to children or adolescents with academic difficulties, whose results do not improve despite the help of teachers or parents. But it is not reserved for children who have problems of understanding or attention, because paradoxically, there are gifted children who find themselves in school failure. They lose interest in classical teachings that do not respond to their thirst for knowledge and disinvest in school. And it is at the turn of a psychological assessment and a test of IQ that, often, we are surprised to see that we are dealing with an early child.
And ... in practice?
Through interviews and a series of specialized tests, the psychologist evaluates the potential of the child, his resources, his interests and the sensitive points of his personality. This series of tests, practiced exclusively by psychologists trained in psychometrics, investigates different domains: short-term memory, speed of information processing, reasoning or verbal abilities; but also the level of anxiety of the child, his ability to enter into relationship with others or his ability to project into a complex situation.
Because a psychological assessment serves to provide an understanding of the child in its singularity, there are no good or bad answers to the tests because the results vary from one child to another. It is these results, analyzed in the light of the personality of the child, that provide the psychologist with indications of how he works.
A psychological assessment it is not ...
Let me also tell you what is NOT a psychological assessment: it is not something that one does out of curiosity, "just like that, to see", because these tests are expensive in time, in money but especially in investment and psychic energy. Even a small child understands the issues of a psychometric test very well so it is not necessary to put it to the test if it does not need it. It is not a test that we do because we are an anxious mother and we need to be reassured. If that's your case, then make the right balance between your anxiety and your child's skills. Nor is it a miraculous solution or a goal in itself, but rather a way to turn to the best of solutions.
In a report, we do not only look for "it does not work" but how to make "it works". The interpretation of the results will make it possible to better target the accompaniment of the child. Each difficulty calls for a specific answer: rehabilitation with the help of a speech therapist, psychomotor management, specific academic support, psychotherapy ... and this global approach offers the possibility of having a thorough understanding of the child for the care the most suitable.