Neurodevelopmental & Psychoeducational Assessments for Dragon School Students (Madrid)
Global Education Testing delivers comprehensive psychoeducational and neurodevelopmental assessments to Dragon American School families. Access is immediate. The full process from initial enquiry through to delivery of the written report takes 21 days, and the comprehensive assessment costs EUR 2,650.
The diagnostic report is anchored in DSM-5-TR and ICD-11 criteria, written in English by HCPC-registered educational psychologists. The report is structured to satisfy the College Board (SAT, ACT, AP), Cambridge International, Spanish university entrance procedures, and university learning support services within a single document.
About Dragon American School Madrid
Dragon American School is the American school of Torrelodones, located on Calle Tampico approximately 30 kilometres northwest of central Madrid. The campus sits in the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama in a natural setting.
The school’s educational identity is anchored in this environment: “learning where nature teaches” is one of the school’s defining propositions. Dragon serves students from age three to 18 across Infantil, Primaria, Secundaria, and Bachillerato.
The school is authorised by the United States, by Cambridge, and by the Comunidad de Madrid, with graduates earning both the American High School Diploma and the Spanish Bachillerato. Classes are organised in mixed-age flexible groups rather than rigid year cohorts, and every student is assigned an educational mentor who guides their academic path according to their strengths and chosen university destination.
Dragon does not permit mobile phones at any year group. Students hand them in on arrival and collect them on leaving, with the school explicitly positioned as an environment of authentic learning free from digital distractions.
At Bachillerato level, students prepare four Specific Proficiency Tests (PCEs) alongside the American Diploma for Spanish university entrance. Many students sit the SAT and Advanced Placement examinations through the College Board for US university applications. School bus routes run from central Madrid, Pozuelo de Alarcón, and other Madrid suburbs.
What a Comprehensive Psychoeducational Assessment Examines
A comprehensive psychoeducational assessment provides Dragon American School families, teachers, and educational mentors with a detailed clinical understanding of how a student learns, processes information, regulates attention, manages academic demands, and functions within a personalised, multilingual learning environment.
The assessment examines:
- Cognitive abilities, reasoning, and problem-solving
- Working memory, processing speed, and learning efficiency
- Reading, spelling, written expression, and mathematics attainment
- Attention regulation, concentration, and impulsivity
- Executive functioning skills
- Emotional wellbeing, school anxiety, and academic stress
- Behavioural and social functioning
- Learning differences including dyslexia, ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, autism spectrum profiles, and processing difficulties
What the Assessment Unlocks
A Global Education Testing comprehensive assessment supports Dragon families and educational mentors in identifying special educational needs, planning classroom and executive functioning interventions, structuring emotional wellbeing support, and applying for examination access arrangements.
The diagnostic findings, where clinically appropriate, support:
- Extra time in examinations (commonly 25 per cent, with 50 or 100 per cent available where the diagnostic profile supports it)
- Supervised rest breaks
- A separate or smaller examination room with reduced distraction
- Use of a laptop or word processor
- Reader, scribe, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech support
- Modified paper formats and assistive technology
- A prompter for students with attention difficulties
- Permission to take medication during examinations
- Organisational, executive functioning, and differentiated classroom strategies
Curriculum Specific Educational Assessments from Global Education Testing
Dragon students sit examinations across multiple systems.
The American Diploma pathway runs through the College Board for SAT, PSAT, ACT, and AP examinations. Access arrangements are administered through Services for Students with Disabilities, which requires diagnostic documentation anchored in DSM-5-TR or ICD-11 and recommendations linked specifically to the accommodations being requested.
The Spanish university entrance pathway runs through the PCEs (Pruebas de Competencias Específicas). Access arrangements are administered by UNED, which oversees these specific proficiency tests for students from non-Spanish educational systems.
Where Dragon students sit any Cambridge examinations as part of their American programme, Cambridge International administers access arrangements through its own framework.
A single comprehensive Global Education Testing report supports all of these systems alongside US and international university learning support services.
The Problem with Local Spanish Assessments
A Spanish-language informe psicopedagógico may satisfy parts of the Spanish university entrance pathway, but it will not be accepted by the College Board, by Cambridge International, or by US universities. The format, the named subtests, the standard scoring conventions, the diagnostic frameworks, and the qualifications of the assessor are international standards.
A Dragon student pursuing the American Diploma alongside the Spanish Bachillerato needs documentation that satisfies both systems.
Dragon’s experienced teaching team and the educational mentor model produce unusually detailed knowledge of each student. What they do not produce is the independent, externally-authored diagnostic documentation the examination boards specifically require.
Why Comprehensive Assessment Suits the Personalised Dragon Model
Dragon American School operates on a foundational premise that few schools embrace as fully: every student has a unique cognitive, emotional, and developmental profile, and effective education starts with understanding that profile rather than imposing a uniform programme on top of it.
The school’s flexible mixed-age groups, the absence of identical student timetables, and the educational mentor model all flow from this premise. The school treats individual differences as the default, not the exception.
A comprehensive psychoeducational assessment is the diagnostic instrument that operates from the same starting point. The assessment does not begin by asking whether a single named condition is present. It begins by mapping the student’s cognitive abilities, then maps academic achievement, then maps executive function, then maps attention through self-report and computerised continuous performance testing, then maps emotional functioning and adjustment.
The integrated profile reveals the unique cognitive, academic, and emotional shape of the individual student.
For Dragon’s educational mentor working with a student, this integrated profile is exactly the kind of information the personalised pathway model is built to use. A mentor who knows that a student has strong fluid reasoning but slow processing speed designs a different programme from one who knows the student has average cognitive ability but specific phonological processing difficulties. A mentor who understands that a student’s attention difficulties reflect ADHD recommends different supports from one who understands that the same surface symptoms reflect anxiety.
The comprehensive assessment provides the depth that Dragon’s personalised approach can actually work with.
A single-condition screen does not produce this picture. A dyslexia-only screen tells the family whether dyslexia is present and stops. It does not capture the broader profile that Dragon’s mentor model is designed to respond to.
The comprehensive assessment captures it. The school’s pedagogy assumes individual difference is the norm; the comprehensive assessment is the clinical articulation of that individual difference.
This is also what the examination boards require. The College Board, UNED, and Cambridge International all expect documentation that captures the full functional picture rather than a single diagnostic label.