PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL EVALUATION
Name: BUTLER, Allyson
Date of Birth: 01/16/1998
Chronological Age: 16-6
Brittney Kraus, M. Ed. Candidate
REASON FOR REFERRAL:
Allyson was referred for evaluation by Mrs. Kraus in order to determine
academic strengths and weaknesses and to assess her current cognitive processing
skills.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Allyson is currently enrolled at Hanover High School in Mechanicsville,
Virginia. At the time of testing, she had just completed the tenth grade. She has no
IEP and participates in the general education curriculum. Allyson passed all of the
tenth grade Virginia Standards of Learning. On her 2013-2014 report card, Allyson
received A’s in all of her classes except Chemistry, for which she received a B.
BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATIONS:
Testing took place in Allyson’s home, over two sessions. Allyson maintained
focus throughout each of the testing sessions. At times, she expressed that she had
“no idea” how to respond to certain test items. When prompted to try her best, she
would show substantial effort, but on a few items she gave no response, saying she
“didn’t know”. On one subtest (calculations), the basal was not established due to
examiner error. Results of this subtest should be read and interpreted with caution.
Positive rapport existed prior to testing between Allyson and the examiner and was
maintained throughout both testing sessions. The results of this measure are
considered to be a reliable measure of Allyson’s current skill levels.
TEST ADMINISTERED: Woodcock-Johnson psychological battery.
CURRENT TEST DATA:
Woodcock-Johnson-III (See attached sheet)
TEST INTERPRETATIONS:
The Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III) was administered to Allyson to assess
cognitive abilities, scholastic aptitude and achievement. The WJ-III is composed of
both cognitive and achievement sections. These batteries comprise a wide agerange, comprehensive system for measuring general intellectual ability (g), specific
cognitive abilities, oral language, and academic achievement. The WJ-III batteries
are designed to provide valid methods for determining strengths and weaknesses
based upon actual discrepancy norms.
The WJ-III cognitive section is designed to assess comprehension-knowledge,
long-term retrieval, visual-spatial thinking, auditory processing, fluid reasoning,
processing speed, and short-term memory. Allyson’s profile demonstrated a
significant strength in the area of verbal comprehension. Between verbal
comprehension and spatial relations, a significant discrepancy was observed.
Allyson’s spatial relations score was more than one and one-half standard
deviations away from her verbal comprehension score. Conversely, Allyson’s scores
on other subtests that require visual perception were in the low-average to average
range. These subtests involve skills such as visual perception, visual feature
detection, and matching. Visual matching tasks that did not have a language
component were a relative weakness for Allyson. It should be noted that during
these subtests Allyson displayed profuse focus and seemed to be concentrating very
hard on the visuals provided. She did not show signs of frustration during these
tasks.
Allyson’s ability to perform language-based tasks, both visual and auditory,
was commensurate with the expectations associated with her age. She was in the
high-average to average range on subtests involving language, including visualauditory learning, sound blending, incomplete words, and auditory working
memory. Encoding and retrieval are a relative strength, however her use of working
memory was shown to be a relative weakness. This is evidenced by the significant
discrepancy in scores for visual-auditory learning and numbers reversed.
The achievement section of the Woodcock-Johnson-III was administered to
Allyson to determine skill levels in reading, oral expression, listening
comprehension, mathematics, and written language. Allyson’s profile demonstrated
that her use of semantic processing is a strength. She is in the high average range
(relative to a normed group of same-age peers) on the reading fluency, story recall,
and writing fluency subtests. These subtests require speeded semantic decision
making and semantic processing speed. Letter-word identification was a relative
weakness. This finding is consistent with findings on the WJ-III Cognitive
Assessment in that letter-word identification requires visual feature detection and
analysis.
Math fluency, calculation, and applied problems scores were commensurate
with expectations based on age. Allyson was right at the average for her peers on
these subtests. There is a significant discrepancy between her math and language
ability, though math ability was still in average range. Allyson expressed to
examiner that she does not enjoy math and prefers most any other subject, but she
regularly receives A’s in the subject on her report cards.
Passage comprehension and writing samples were a relative weakness for
Allyson, especially compared to other language-based subtests. There was a
significant discrepancy observed between passage comprehension and the other
language-based subtests. Allyson scored in the below-average range on the writing
samples subtest. Both writing samples and passage comprehension require
inference. Allyson’s ability to inferentially bridge information is a relative weakness.
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
Overall, Allyson appears to be performing commensurate with expectations
and her current educational placement appears to meet her current educational
needs. It is clear that visual matching and visual feature detection tasks are a
challenge. To combat this, Allyson’s instruction should incorporate multisensory
teaching techniques. In the same vein, she may also benefit from hands-on activities,
and working with objects to understand concepts versus simply pictures or visual
information. Spelling-based decoding strategies may also assist her in visually
decoding words. To address issues of inference, teaching strategies should be
employed that focus on activating prior knowledge. Imagery strategies may be
useful when attempting tasks that require inferential bridging. Generally Allyson’s
academic performance is commensurate with expectations, though she may benefit
from the use of teaching strategies that make concepts clearer to her.
Submitted by:
__________________________________
Brittney B. Kraus, M. Ed. Candidate
Student-In-Training