Overview of the Cognitive Aptitude Assessment Software

Reading Success Lab Team

James 'Mike' Royer, Ph.D.

James Mike Royer Ph.D., Director of the Laboratory for the Assessment and Training of Academic Skills, UMass Amherst, responds to questions about Current Research On Finding Solutions To Reading Problems

Jeremy Wise Ph.D.
Responds To Questions about the Software.

Researcher Version
Parent Version
Educator Version
Business Version

Table of Contents
Educator Store
Researcher Store
Testing Products
Intervention Products

Reading Skills

Reading Fluency

Reading Disabilities

Reading Difficulties

Assessing Reading

Diagnosing Dyslexia

Improve Reading Skills

Reading Intervention

Treatment for Dyslexia

FREE Reading and Dyslexia Screening software

Overview of the Cognitive Aptitude Assessment Software

The Cognitive Aptitude Assessment Software system from Educational Help Inc. is a computerized assessment system based on leading-edge theories of cognitive skill development.

The software is very useful as an assessment system in a number of areas including:

Education - Evaluation/remediation of academic difficulties and learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, and ADD.
Research - Collect accuracy and response time data for for a wide variety stimuli including multimedia and a wide variety of response types including microphone, button, and on-screen buttons.
Business - Evaluate job training programs and screen applicants based on actual job task materials.
Parents - Evaluate your child for learning disabilities and keep on eye on the school system.

A typical use of the Cognitive Aptitude Assessment Software would be:

Log on person being tested.
Run a series of tasks covering various skills.
View results of tasks. Compare to norms or previous results.

The Cognitive Aptitude Assessment Software measures both speed and accuracy of every response and combines these into a single quantity.

Tasks

The Cognitive Aptitude Assessment Software comes with a large number of tasks that cover a wide range of language and math skills. The system is an open system and it is a simple matter to create custom tasks. Each task consists of a series stimuli presented to a person followed by the person's response.

Tasks which come with the system cover the following areas:

Reading
Math
Reading Comprehension
Listening Comprehension
Phonological Awareness

Stimuli

The stimuli that comprise a task may be text, sound, or graphics depending on the task.

Sample stimuli are:

A word appears on screen - student speaks word.
Two words played through speakers - student decides if they rhyme.
Two pictures appear, one rotated - student decides if they are the same object.

Responses

Responses to the stimuli come from several sources depending on the task.

Microphone - Naming tasks
L/R mouse buttons - binary choice tasks
On Screen buttons - multiple choice tasks

Scoring Responses

Each response is scored at immediately after the response is given. The kind of scoring depends on the task.

Manual scoring - for naming tasks a scorer uses left/right mouse to grade the response.
Automatic scoring - for all other tasks the software "knows" the correct response.

Results

The results of all activity on the Cognitive Aptitude Assessment Software is stored in a database and can be recalled and displayed at a later time.

Results may be displayed in many forms including:

Progress reports - one task with many dates
Profile reports - one date with many tasks
2D and 3D graphs - profiles and progress