Our Diagnostic Test Battery
GLOBAL EDUCATION TESTING - ASSESSMENT BATTERY
Global Education Testing administers a full diagnostic battery across four domains: cognitive ability, academic attainment, underlying processing, and attention and executive function. Every assessment runs the complete core battery, extended with additional instruments where the presenting profile requires them.
Cognitive ability is measured with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition, or the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale for students aged 18 and over. These produce a full profile across verbal comprehension, visual-spatial reasoning, fluid reasoning, working memory and processing speed, establishing whether attainment reflects ability or falls significantly below it. Academic attainment is measured with the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test across reading accuracy, comprehension and fluency, spelling, written expression, numerical operations and mathematical reasoning.
Underlying processing is where a diagnosis is confirmed. The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, Second Edition, measures phonological awareness, phonological memory and rapid naming, the three processes most consistently implicated in dyslexia and the ones that persist across every language a student speaks. The Taylor Complex Figure Test assesses visual-spatial construction, planning and visual memory. The Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank captures emotional and motivational factors that attainment testing alone will not reveal.
Attention and executive function are measured objectively rather than by report alone. The MOXO Continuous Performance Test provides a computerised measure of attention, timing, impulsivity and hyperactivity under standardised distraction conditions, interpreted alongside the SNAP-IV 26 and Conners rating scales completed by parents and teachers. Where autism is being considered, the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders provides the structured developmental interview required for a defensible diagnosis.
Every instrument is scored, interpreted and integrated by an HCPC-registered educational psychologist, and every finding reported against DSM-5-TR and ICD-11 criteria. The pages below set out what each test measures, what the scores mean, and how they combine into a diagnosis.
The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition, is the most widely used measure of cognitive ability for children aged 6 to 16 and forms the foundation of every psychoeducational assessment. It produces a Full Scale IQ alongside five index scores covering verbal comprehension, visual-spatial ability, fluid reasoning, working memory and processing speed. Diagnosis rests on the pattern between these indices rather than the headline figure. Strong verbal reasoning alongside significantly weaker working memory constitutes a materially different profile from evenly distributed scores producing an identical Full Scale IQ. The WISC-V establishes a child’s cognitive capability, which is the reference point against which every attainment score in the report is interpreted.
The Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, Third Edition, is the standardised measure of academic attainment used alongside the WISC-V and WAIS. It assesses performance across reading accuracy, reading comprehension, reading fluency, spelling, written expression, numerical operations and mathematical reasoning, with each subtest scored against age-referenced norms. The WIAT-III establishes where a student’s attainment sits relative to peers and, when interpreted against cognitive ability, whether that attainment falls significantly below expected levels. A specific learning disorder is identified where attainment in a defined domain is impaired while cognitive ability remains intact. The subtest structure isolates the point of breakdown, distinguishing a student who decodes accurately but reads slowly from one whose decoding itself is impaired, and a student who cannot execute calculation from one who cannot interpret the problem.
The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition, is the standard measure of cognitive ability for students aged 18 and over and replaces the WISC-V at this stage. It produces a Full Scale IQ alongside four index scores covering verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory and processing speed. Adult norms are essential at this stage, as scores referenced against a childhood sample overstate performance and understate impairment in older students. Diagnosis rests on the pattern between indices rather than the headline figure. The WAIS-IV carries particular weight for university applications, Disabled Students’ Allowance and professional admissions testing, where assessing bodies require cognitive evidence obtained on an adult instrument.
The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale, Revised, is a standardised self-report measure of autistic traits in adults, comprising 80 items across social relatedness, language, sensory-motor function and circumscribed interests. The RAADS-14 is its abbreviated screening form. Both are administered as screening instruments within the assessment rather than as diagnostic tools, and elevated scores indicate that structured diagnostic interview is warranted rather than confirming a diagnosis in themselves. Where autism is being considered, findings from the RAADS-R are taken forward into the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders, which provides the developmental history and observational evidence required for a diagnosis under DSM-5-TR and ICD-11.
The Swanson, Nolan and Pelham Rating Scale, Fourth Edition, is a standardised behavioural rating scale used in the assessment of ADHD. The 26-item version comprises nine items on inattention, nine on hyperactivity and impulsivity, and eight on oppositional behaviour, each rated on frequency and scored against age-referenced norms. Separate forms are completed by parents and teachers, which is what allows the assessment to establish symptom presence across multiple settings. Cross-setting evidence is a mandatory DSM-5-TR criterion for ADHD, and a diagnosis cannot be made where symptoms are reported in one environment alone.
The Conners, Third Edition, is a standardised rating scale for the assessment of ADHD and associated difficulties in students aged 6 to 18. It produces scores across inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity, learning problems, executive function, defiance and aggression, and peer relations, alongside DSM-5-TR symptom scales and validity indices that identify inconsistent or exaggerated responding. Parent, teacher and self-report forms are administered together, providing the multi-informant evidence required to establish symptom presence across settings. The Conells 3 extends beyond the core ADHD criteria to capture executive function and academic impact, which is what connects an attention profile to classroom performance and to the accommodations the report recommends. It is interpreted alongside the SNAP-IV and the objective MOXO performance data.
The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, Second Edition, measures the three processing abilities most consistently implicated in dyslexia: phonological awareness, phonological memory and rapid automatised naming. It is administered to students from age 4 to 24 and produces composite scores against age-referenced norms. Phonological awareness governs the ability to identify and manipulate the sound structure of language, phonological memory governs the retention of that information during processing, and rapid naming governs retrieval speed. Impairment in these areas persists across every language a student speaks, which is what allows the CTOPP-2 to distinguish a specific learning disorder from limited exposure to the language of instruction. The CTOPP-2 provides the underlying processing evidence that converts a pattern of low reading attainment into a defensible diagnosis of dyslexia.
The Taylor Complex Figure Test requires a student to copy a complex geometric figure and then reproduce it from memory after a delay. It provides evidence across visual-spatial construction, organisational strategy, planning and visual memory within a single task. The copy condition establishes perceptual and constructional accuracy. The recall condition establishes what has been retained, and the difference between the two isolates memory difficulty from perceptual difficulty. Scoring records not only accuracy but approach, distinguishing a student who reproduces the figure through a coherent structural plan from one who assembles it detail by detail without an organising framework. That distinction is central to identifying executive function weakness, which shapes performance across extended tasks, written assignments and examination questions requiring multi-step responses.
The Draw-A-Person test requires a student to produce freehand drawings of human figures, scored against standardised developmental criteria based on the presence, proportion and detail of anatomical features. It provides a brief non-verbal indicator of visual-motor integration, conceptual development and graphomotor control, and places no demand on language, reading or written expression. This makes it useful early in an assessment with students working in an additional language, students with limited formal schooling, or younger children where verbal instruments alone would understate ability.
The Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank presents forty sentence stems for the student to complete in their own words, producing a structured sample of how they describe school, family, peers, the future and themselves. Responses are scored against standardised criteria to produce an overall adjustment score, with individual items reviewed for content. It captures motivation, self-concept, frustration and anxiety, factors that shape academic performance and are not visible in cognitive or attainment data. A student whose responses centre on failure, comparison with peers or fear of examinations presents a materially different picture from one whose scores are identical but whose self-concept remains intact. The RISB is administered to identify emotional factors contributing to underachievement and to establish whether anxiety is a consequence of academic difficulty or a driver of it.
The Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders is a structured clinical interview conducted with a parent or primary caregiver, covering more than three hundred items across social interaction, communication, repetitive and restricted behaviours, sensory responses, and developmental history from infancy onward. It gathers evidence of the individual’s functioning at each stage of development rather than at the point of assessment alone, which is what establishes the early-onset criterion required under DSM-5-TR and ICD-11. The DISCO records both current presentation and the developmental trajectory that produced it, capturing traits that have been masked or compensated for and would not be observed in a single session.
The Diagnostic Interview for ADHD in Adults, Fifth Edition, is a structured clinical interview covering each DSM-5-TR criterion for ADHD in turn, across both childhood and adulthood. For every symptom it requires concrete examples drawn from the individual’s own history rather than an unsupported rating, and it establishes impairment across at least two of five domains: work and education, relationships and family, social contact, free time and hobbies, and self-confidence and self-image. Childhood onset is examined directly, with collateral evidence sought from parents, school reports and previous assessments where available. The DIVA-5 provides the diagnostic evidence that rating scales cannot supply, as scales measure symptom frequency while diagnosis requires demonstrated impairment, cross-setting presence and developmental history.
The MOXO Continuous Performance Test is a computerised measure of attention administered under standardised visual and auditory distraction. The student responds to defined target stimuli across a timed sequence, and performance is scored against age-referenced norms on four independent indices: attention, timing, impulsivity and hyperactivity. The introduction of controlled distractors is what distinguishes MOXO from conventional performance tests.