Relevance of Achievement Testing

While achievement testing is most commonly used in school settings, it can also be beneficial in clinical settings and helps guide clinical decisions and therapeutic interventions. Achievement tests provide a clinician with information related to a client’s language skills, reading level, comprehension, and problem-solving abilities. With this information, clinicians can devise interventions that meet the client’s abilities, or carefully choose interventions that are valid only for certain levels of achievement or ability. For example, it would be inappropriate to devise an intricate intervention or use highly complex words in a therapeutic interaction when a client’s language and comprehension skills are not advanced enough to adequately understand and participate in the intervention.