During my time volunteering at a school for children with developmental needs, I learned that as a part of their curriculum, each student receives frequent psychological testing. This testing is done by a psychologist who works outside the school. The psychologist comes in for a few days and takes each student one at a time into a private room to evaluate them on multiple domains. Unfortunately I am unaware of the exact tests that are given. The psychologist then discusses the results with the parents and educators of the child to help develop their individual education plan.
Last month, I had the opportunity to observe one of the testing sessions of a student. This particular student has a very hard time sitting still, therefore the psychologist struggled to administer the test. She spent most o the time just trying to get him to sit in his chair and pay attention. At the time I was watching she was trying to see if he was capable of understanding simple patterning. Based on his performance on the test, I am sure she concluded he was not.
However, during my time working with the student in the classroom I knew he understood simple patterning. However, in this unusual setting and with a stranger he had dinner met he was obviously distressed and frusterated. I was also frusterated because I felt the psychologist would not leave with a correct understanding of the child’s abilities.
This experience led me to think about psychological testing in a more in depth way. Previously, I had only ever experience psychological testing as a study particpant. As an average particpant I caused no additional challenges in test administration, and (from my perspective anyways) things went smoothly and as expected. Situations where you are testing a child with developmental difficultues, or a person with a psychiatric disorder, there can be challenges in administration that can effect the test results.
I wonder how we can come up with ways to compensate for these factors, to get more accurate results. Looking forward in anticipation of the semester, I want to explore if psychological tests can truly be accurate representations of behaviour when given in unnaural settings.
Student ID: 260510305
