ABSTRACT
When placements are being considered for children, or indeed when the functioning of a child in care is a cause for concern, the multidisciplinary team will often turn to the psychologist for a view about this. Perhaps a child is under-achieving in school, or appears to be struggling with a particular aspect of the curriculum, such as arithmetic or reading, or has problems with the ability to attend and concentrate, which may fluctuate. Often psychological assessments are equated with cognitive or attainment tests, where a child's intelligent quotient is given as a score and his abilities are given in terms of ages. However, psychologists are trained in a much wider range of assessments, and part of the psychologist's task is to decide which kind of test or assessment would be most helpful in the understanding of the child's presentation and functioning.
