Cognitive Assessment (IQ)

What are cognitive abilities?

Current research tells us that there are several skills that all brains have the capacity to apply in everyday thinking and learning (i.e., ‘cognitive abilities’). Everyone learns differently, and tests of cognitive abilities provide information on how an individual learns best, as well as areas for support. Psychologists at the Social Learning Studio have access to two of the most widely used assessments of cognitive ability:

  • The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children 5th Edition (also known as the WISC-V), used for people aged 6 years to 16 years and 11 months

  • The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale 4th Edition (also known as the WAIS-IV): used for people aged 16 years to 90 years and 11 months.

What does the assessment involve?

As well as giving us an overall picture of a person’s ‘intelligence’, the activities in each of these tools help us explore a person’s unique pattern of strengths and challenges in some important cognitive abilities. For example, the WISC-V captures these cognitive abilities through its different ‘index’ scores:

  • Crystallised Intelligence (the WISC-V ‘Verbal Comprehension Index’)
    The ability to make use of verbal information (e.g., ‘what’ something is or ‘how’ to do a skill) built up through education and life experiences

  • Visual Processing (the WISC-V ‘Visual-Spatial Index’)
    The ability to build, mentally store and retrieve, and transform visual images or patterns

  • Fluid Intelligence (the WISC-V ‘Fluid Reasoning Index’)
    The ability to solve new problems using logic and reasoning.

  • Short-Term Working Memory (the WISC-V ‘Working Memory Index’)
    The ability to hold information in mind and act on it within a short time (i.e., seconds / minutes).

  • Processing Speed (the WISC-V ‘Processing Speed Index’)
    The ability to take in and act on information quickly and accurately.

In most situations, the assessment session will start with the psychologist spending some time getting to know the person in front of them. This might include how they’ve slept and eaten the night before, how they’re feeling about the assessment session and how the young person sees their strengths and challenges when it comes to thinking.

The psychologist will then go through the activities or tasks from the specific assessment. Most importantly, the psychologist will go through these activities in a standardised way. This means that they will follow set steps, say specific phrases, and can only give information in certain situations. While this sounds strange, keeping the way the test is done every time means we can compare one person’s performance to another person’s – because the only thing that is different each time the assessment is done is the person doing it!

What will - and won’t - the assessment tell us?

What this assessment will tell us:

  •  A score summarising a person’s ‘overall’ cognitive ability
    Commonly known as an IQ score, both the WISC-V and WAIS-IV provide a score range that we can use to compare a person’s general cognitive ability level with others of a similar age

  • A score for each of the individual abilities that make up ‘overall’ cognitive ability
    This helps us identify strengths and support challenges.

  • Recommendations for supports or accommodations to trial based on the person’s pattern of strengths and challenges.
    Recommendations around further assessment - either with a different focus or just the same assessment after a period of time to check for changes - is a common outcome.

What this assessment won’t tell us:

  • THE final / absolute / definitive value for a person’s IQ
    Cognitive ability levels get more stable over time, so a young person’s scores might change slightly as they get older.
    More generally, things like the amount of sleep before the assessment, how worried your young person is about testing, or recent stressful or emotional events can play a role in how well that person does on the day.
    To make this clear, we provide 95% confidence intervals for relevant scores. This gives us a range around the score (e.g., a score of 100 might have a range of 93 – 107); if the person took the test 100 times, we can be confident their score will fall somewhere in that range 95 out of those 100 times.

  • How well the person is doing at school
    While doing a cognitive assessment might help us see links between a person’s cognitive abilities and what is easy or hard about school, there are a lot of factors impacting the way a person’s ability is translated into their performance.
    Specific learning disorder testing is a separate assessment focus. While cognitive assessments can be a useful piece of information, a cognitive assessment is not required to explore and make a diagnosis about a specific learning disorder.

How much it will cost

Clinical Assessments with reports and feedback meetings can range from $900 - $2200 including GST.

The specific cost depends on exactly what needs to happen in each specific assessment. For example, the following play a role in how much an assessment costs:

  • The time it takes to complete the ‘typical’ activities and tasks
    E.g., most cognitive assessments with young people take place over a 2-hour session but issues – positive and negative – can come up that mean it takes longer.

  • Additional testing or tools that need to be used, following the results of earlier assessment

  • How complex the information provided is to pull together and report on.

As noted on our fees page, we will provide an individual fee schedule for each assessment. The costs outlined here are determined by:

  • The clinician’s hourly rate

  • The cost of the certified assessment form/s ($5-25 each)

  • The time required to

    • administer the assessment/s

    • score the assessment/s

    • evaluate the results

    • produce a report

    • meet with the client/parents and/or teacher to discuss the results and recommendations.