Academic Achievement Assessment: More Complex Than It Seems

Achievement testing measures an individual’s specific academic abilities in various general domains, such as reading, writing, math, and language as well as numerous subareas within the general domains. The development of these skills impacts the child’s school functioning. Achievement testing is best interpreted within the context of a psychoeducational assessment that includes cognitive assessment (and social-emotional assessment). This chapter discusses the ways to gather these data and interpret within the context of other data. Data should be sufficiently specific by reaching beyond numerical scores to pinpoint weaknesses/limitations/gaps in knowledge and skills as well as the child’s strengths. Practitioners should be familiar with a variety of instruments (i.e., broadband and single construct) and be willing to expand their repertoire as new instruments become available. The written reports should limit the use of jargon to describe the child and their functioning and not simply report numerical scores, so that it is understandable to parents and teachers. Well-described data facilitates the development of instructional recommendations to be implemented, not merely a recommendation for an educational placement or service. A case example that illustrates these notions is provided.