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Approaches to Psychological Assessment by Educational Psychologists in England and Wales

This article reports on the findings of a questionnaire survey of 142 educational psychologists from England and Wales on their approach to the assessment of children with learning and behavioural problems. Participants were asked to report on the frequency with which they used a variety of approaches to assessment, including interviews with pupils and parents, observations, psychometric tests of ability and achievement, criterion referenced approaches and dynamic assessment. They were also asked to indicate the approaches that they found most useful. The findings indicate that partial psychometric assessments of ability feature prominently in the assessment of children with learning difficulties, though less in the assessment of children with behaviour problems. Approaches based on dynamic assessment are not used frequently although those who do use them find them to be useful to the purpose of the assessment. On the whole, the educational psychologists in this survey were not influenced by the written guidance proposed by the professional associations - the Division of Educational and Child Psychology and the Association of Educational Psychologists. In addition, 40 percent of respondents indicated that their work was not influenced by any one or more theoretical orientations in psychology that could be linked to the origins of behaviour or learning difficulties or about approaches to intervention. The findings are discussed in the light of developments in which the British Government is proposing to introduce wholesale changes to the ways in which services for children will be organized and to the professional roles and qualifications of different helping professions. Within these developments, it seems likely that educational psychologists will be required to justify their distinctive contribution to child assessment and intervention.