Through specific research modules studying the administration and analysis of psychometric tests as part of his MSc, John is qualified to administer Level B tests (in accordance with the standards and professional testing practices set out by The British Psychological Society and equivalent professional bodies) which include stand-alone tests of expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, pragmatic (social) language skills and level of understanding of questions (Blank level questions). The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (5th Ed.) (CELF-5) includes a battery of tests which again can be used as individual assessments or in combination: Observational Rating Scale, Sentence Comprehension, Linguistic Concepts, Word Structure, Word Classes, Following Directions, Formulated Sentences, Recalling Sentences, Understanding Spoken Paragraphs, Word Definitions, Sentence Assembly, Semantic Relationships, Pragmatics Profile and Pragmatic Activities Checklist.

Analysis of the outcomes can provide an insight into other needs such as identifying possible dyslexia (by the comparison of spoken language and/or reading comprehension to single word reading) or hyperlexia (which can be related to ASD), possible ASD traits and/or behavioural needs (as identified by the Children’s Communication Checklist). If required, a full analytical report can be written which includes explanations of the outcomes, the implications for learning and teaching, suggested strategies and suggestions of resources for interventions.

Assistance with for example, the interpretation and analysis of assessment outcomes is available at any time via email, telephone or Zoom/Teams meetings.

It is important that all staff are also aware of what the outcomes of assessments mean e.g. understanding standardised scores, so that everyone is talking the same language. Professional Learning sessions can also be provided for this.

Further, analysis of, for example, the effect size of interventions can be undertaken using analytical software such as the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to interrogate the data. This can be used to identify not only which interventions are working but also how effective they are by measuring the effect size using Cohen’s d and to also identify, for example, where the next focus of whole school ‘intervention’ should be e.g. reading and receptive vocabulary intervention has demonstrated a large impact on skills but spelling has not developed as it was not a focus of a whole school approach.

All of the above has been tried and tested by John as part of his quantitative research dissertation and has continued to be used as described above in a PRU to inform their SER, SIP and SDP. It also provides hard evidence for Estyn / Ofsted inspections.