The traditional psychological and psychometric assessment of people, including IQ tests, focus on measuring the present capabilities of a person. Our LECA assesses the learning potential of the person, rather than the present manifestation of that person’s capabilities.
The assessment device is designed to assess a person’s adaptability rather than his or her fixed and constant characteristics or present functional levels. Due to the structure of the standard IQ tests, psychologists cannot use them to assess adaptability. They do not include the component necessary for making inferences neither about processes nor potential. The dynamic assessment that is used at Insite overcomes this limitation of intelligence tests, and provides a basis for making inferences, based on observations in particular tasks, regarding the nature and adequacy of development of important thinking functions, the relative ease with which such functions can be changed and how readily the changed functions are applied in new tasks. This assessment then becomes the basis for making further inferences about the person’s level of learning potential.
The LECA assessment process is divided into 3 phases:
1. A pre-test which is similar to the classic psychological tests (several hours long).
2. A learning process in which the expert implements the principles of mediated learning through cognitive interference that equips the person being assessed with structured tools to perform problem solving. This process also requires several hours.
3. A post-test, similar to the pre-test. The assessment device measures the change between the pre-test and the post-test. In the cognitive domains where the change is larger there is a bigger potential for change. The purpose of the pre and post-test is not to prove or demonstrate change, but rather measure the cognitive areas where more mediation would surely yield the greatest change. Thus within the relatively short duration of the 3 phases of the assessment, conclusions can be drawn about the much longer term learning and modifiable potential of the person. The dynamic assessment has been widely proven to accurately predict the learning potential in specific areas over a period of decades. The findings of a dynamic assessment conducted on a group of people reveal the individuals with the higher potential to be trained in different domains. At the same time, it supplies a cognitive map of the group identifying cognitive deficiencies and enables tailoring of LATE exercises and tasks that are selected to specifically address and correct these deficiencies in the same group.
