EFFECTS OF DYNAMIC TESTING ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF LEARNING-DISABILITIES - THE PREDICTIVE AND DISCRIMINANT VALIDITY OF THE SWANSON COGNITIVE PROCESSING TEST (S-CPT)

This study assessed the criterion-related and discriminant validity of the Swanson-Cognitive Processing Test (S-CPT). The S-CPT is an indivi dually administered standardized battery of information processing tas ks that assess performance under initial (static) and dynamic testing (testing -the-limits) conditions. In Experiment 1, children's (N = 61) performance on the S-CPT under initial and dynamic testing conditions was compared to the WISC-R in predicting performance on Reading and M athematics subtests of the WRAT-R. Gain scores established during dyna mic testing conditions were the best predictors of reading and mathema tics performance (14% and 26% of the variance, respectively). In Exper iment 2, 156 children with reading deficits and 35 skilled readers wer e compared on the S-CPT under static and dynamic testing conditions. A s expected, skilled readers performed better than learning-disabled re aders across all subtests, but the results were qualified when subgrou ps were analyzed. The cluster analysis indicated that approximately 25 % of the sample with learning disabilities was misdiagnosed, and bette r reflected slow learners (poor readers) or instructionally responsive children. The results support the notion that dynamic assessment cont ributes significant variance in the prediction of academic achievement and that such assessment procedures discriminate the processing poten tial of children with reading disabilities from children with other ty pes of learning problems.