Cognitive assessment

What is a cognitive assessment?

Cognitive assessments give us a snapshot of someone’s thinking skills and reasoning abilities, in order to identify areas of strength and any areas of difficulty. Sometimes this snapshot will open up extra support by us providing recommendations to school.

We do not assess for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia.

The assessment involves various tasks including looking at patterns, working with blocks and giving verbal responses. We may also collect a bit of information from the your family.

What should I expect?

The assessments are usually completed over 1 or 2 sessions. These have to be done in person. The first session is usually offered as a 2 hour block, but we do not always need to use the entire 2 hours.

After the assessment is completed, we will write a report which will include some recommendations which we think will be helpful. The report will be shared with your family as well as your case holder. We can also share this with your school if you and your family consent to this.

We will also offer a feedback session to explain the findings of the assessment.

Why have I been asked to do a cognitive assessment?

There are lots of different reasons why someone might be asked to do a cognitive assessment.

You may be finding some aspects of school particularly difficult, or you may be having difficulties with certain tasks at home.

We will only ask someone to do a cognitive assessment if we feel there is a good reason to do it and it is important in being able to offer you the right support in CAMHS.

We want young people to feel as safe and relaxed as possible when they come in for a cognitive assessment. We understand that some people may find it a bit daunting coming in and we will do our very best to put you at ease.

Everyone finds some tasks hard, and some other tasks easy. This is okay, we just ask that you do your best.