Performance Profiles Details, Educational Help, Inc.

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.

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Table of Contents

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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

Performance Profiles Details

The Cognitive Aptitude Assessment Software is designed to measure cognitive skills that support skilled reading and math performance. The tasks contained in an evaluation measure cognitive skills in a particular academic domain (reading, math) that range from very simple to very complex. Each evaluation begins with a task (the simple perception task) that measures the speed and accuracy with which an examinee can respond to a simple perceptual stimulus.

The reading evaluation then moves to measuring the speed and accuracy of letter identification, the speed and accuracy of word identification, the speed and accuracy of pseudo-word identification, the speed and accuracy with which the meaning of words can be identified, and the speed and accuracy of comprehending sentences. These tasks measure a hierarchy of reading skills where mastery of lower level skills is necessary in order to master a higher level skill. So, for example, a high level of proficiency in letter identification is required before a reader can become highly adept at recognizing words.

The math evaluation begins with a number identification task, and then moves to an evaluation of the speed and accuracy with which a student can perform addition, subtraction, and multiplication computations. Additional math tasks that assess higher level skills are also available in the task menu.

Performance profiles can be used in several ways. First, and most importantly, they identify weak skills that can then be targeted for intervention. The general idea is to identify the lowest level skill that is weak, strengthen that skill with an intervention, and then move to the next skill in the hierarchy, strengthen that one, and so on. Second, profiles have diagnostic utility. As described in the section on profile analysis, different types of learning difficulties have distinctly different performance profiles. These profiles are useful in identifying the nature of the learning difficulties students are experiencing.