4 Benefits of a Cognitive Skills Assessment
Cognitive skills are the mental processes that allow us to think, learn, and remember. They include things like attention, memory, problem-solving, and processing speed. A cognitive skills assessment is a test that measures these abilities and can help identify strengths and weaknesses in different areas.
Here are four benefits of taking a cognitive skills assessment:
#1: Identify areas of strength and weakness
A cognitive skills assessment can help identify areas of cognitive strength and weakness. This can be valuable information for people who want to improve their cognitive abilities or for parents/educators who are wondering why certain areas of learning are hard for a student.
We all have a unique skill set. It’s normal for all of us to struggle in one or more areas, but a cognitive skills assessment can shine a light on the particular skill areas that need more attention.
#2: Understand how to improve cognitive skills
By identifying areas of weakness, a cognitive skills assessment can also help individuals understand how they can improve their cognitive abilities.
The great news is that cognitive skills can be strengthened. With a targeted brain training approach, past clients have experienced an average growth of +3.7 years in thinking skills!*
Improving things like memory, attention, processing speed, logic, auditory processing, and more has far-reaching implications for all areas of life. These skills impact more than just school performance. They govern how you function in relationships, sports, work, driving, and every other area of life.
#3: Get a baseline measure of cognitive abilities
A cognitive skills assessment can serve as a baseline measure of cognitive abilities, which can be useful for tracking progress (or decline) over time. For example, if a student takes a cognitive skills assessment at the beginning of the school year and again at the end of the year, the results can show how much the student has improved or fallen further behind.
For adults, it can also be helpful to understand your cognitive performance if you’re concerned about memory loss and cognitive decline. Getting a cognitive skills assessment earlier on will help you uncover latent cognitive weaknesses. Strengthening these earlier on may be able to slow the progression of memory loss, according to research.
#4: Identify underlying causes of learning difficulties
In some cases, a cognitive skills assessment can help identify underlying causes of learning difficulties. A cognitive skills assessment won’t provide a diagnosis of a learning disability. Instead, it uncovers the root-cause reasons for the struggles with attention, working independently, reading, comprehension, and more.
For example, if a student struggles with reading comprehension, a cognitive skills assessment might reveal that the student has difficulty with auditory processing, which is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. For a child like this, continuing with curriculum content isn’t going to allow reading to “click” until this core cognitive skill is strengthened.
These answers are invaluable. They can save you years of guesswork and trial-and-error to find the “right fit” for your kids. Instead, you’re able to identify exactly WHY they struggle and what you can do to make learning easier for them.
Cognitive Testing at LearningRx Charlottesville
Cognitive skills are important for learning and overall cognitive function. Testing these skills can help you understand cognitive strengths and weaknesses and find ways to improve them.
Whether you are:
- A parent seeking answers about why your child struggles in some area of learning
- An adult looking for some baseline data about your cognitive abilities
- A homeschool family wondering why what you’re doing isn’t working for a child
- A parent of a younger student wanting to make sure they are set up to succeed from the get-go
…we are here to help!
Contact us today to set up your assessment and begin the journey to a stronger brain.
*These are results from past clients. You or your child may or may not experience the same outcomes.
