The Value of Assessing Processing Skills

Why does one student succeed academically while another fails in the same school, same class, same teacher and same curriculum?  This same question applies even when comparing different schools.   Is it solely the fault of the teaching process or is it potentially related to how well each student processes and understands information—their capacity to learn.  Mental or cognitive skill performance impacts how well a student learns. 

Cognitive processing skills are the underlying skills that must function for anyone to successfully read, hear, think, prioritize, plan, understand, remember, and solve problems.
  • When processing skills are strong, academic learning is fast, easy, efficient, and even fun. 
  • When processing skills are weak, academic learning will be a struggle, or impossible.
  • Processing skills are, therefore, the essential tools for learning.
  • Knowing a student’s processing skill strengths and weaknesses is critical to ensuring academic success. 
  • Processing skills can be improved through proper training and empower learning. 

The Power to Know™

If a student struggles with any aspect of learning or is not living up to their full potential, processing skill testing can identify causes.  Usually students who struggle with learning have lower self-esteem and are pressured by teachers and parents for not trying hard enough or they are hard on themselves. 

Discovering that a student has weak processing skills can be empowering.  It can boost the student’s self esteem because they now know why learning is hard.  It can provide hope.  This knowledge can provide a direction for finally finding a solution.  It is the first step.  Every parent, teacher and student needs to know this information.  Similar to a vision or hearing screening, every student should have a processing skill screening. 

New Paradigm

Under the old paradigm, processing skill testing is resource intensive and thereby used in a limited scope.   Because knowing the processing skill profile of a student is so important, we are undertaking a nationwide campaign to test every student, to create a new paradigm.  We have built an online processing skill assessment that blends the best elements of several industry standard tests into one unique assessment that consists of seven sub-tests and reports on nine core cognitive skill values.  The test has been normed by age.    

The assessment is Internet-based and takes 35-40 minutes to complete.  Cost and access barriers have been eliminated.   Anyone can now easily discover his or her processing skill profile.  

Summary PDF Document