Dyslexia Assessment in New Zealand: A Strength-Based Cognitive Approach

When dyslexia is assessed well, it is not simply identified — how that person best interacts with learning is understood. A high-quality dyslexia assessment explores an individual’s developmental, educational, and family history alongside a careful examination of literacy skills. It also identifies where they thrive and how they best learn so that these strengths, going forward, can take a central role in their learning and be directly applied to supporting and building lagging skills.

Within this process, the role of cognitive assessment often raises questions — particularly given that the DSM-5 does not require cognitive testing for the diagnosis of dyslexia (classified as a Specific Learning Disorder), unless there is concern about Intellectual Disability. As a result, the inclusion of cognitive assessment is a matter of professional judgement and ethics, requiring psychologists to be able to clearly articulate how any cognitive testing sought to make a meaningfully contribution towards pragmatic understanding and effective learning support.

Cognitive Assessment: Intrusive, but Potentially Powerful

Both the New Zealand Psychologists Board and the Ministry of Education define cognitive assessment as ‘intrusive’. In this context, ‘intrusive’ refers to assessment that focuses ‘within’ the individual, suppose to the assessment being ecological and focusing on factors ‘outside’ of the individual such as the environments and broader systems in which learning occurs.

This distinction matters because ecological assessment is a cornerstone of educational psychology practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. Ecological practice prioritises understanding the factors around the individual — including curriculum, teaching approaches, classroom context, relational supports, home school partnership — as these are the key influences on learning and the most powerful levers for intervention.

Currently in my own practice, this ecological understanding is developed through parent and child interviews, teacher observations, strength-based thinking questionnaires and a review of school-based data. Cognitive assessment, when included, is minimal and sits within this wider ecological picture — affirming an individual’s real-world strengths and explaining why literacy acquisition has been difficult and what to do about it.

Moving Away from Deficit-Based Models

Historically, cognitive assessment has been associated with a deficit-based, medicalised approach to understanding learning difficulties — one focused on labelling what is ‘wrong’ with an individual. Such traditional approaches to cognitive assessment, that seek primarily to diagnose and label, can typically include extensive testing of psychological constructs, lengthy reports filled with unfamiliar and overwhelming language, and be hard to understand beyond whether perceptions of diagnostic criteria have been met or not. This is not how educational psychologists in New Zealand are trained to practice.

Instead, our work is guided by core professional principles that are both ecological and strength-based. Strength-based practice intentionally identifies what is already working well for a learner and asks how those existing capacities can be built upon, to enable sustainable growth.

Strength-Based Cognitive Assessment in Dyslexia

When cognitive assessment is framed through a strength-based lens, it becomes not only ethically aligned with educational psychology practice, but meaningful in a pragmatic real-world sense. One example of this approach is the framework originally described by Eide and Eide (2011, 2023), which conceptualises dyslexia as being commonly associated with distinct thinking strengths including:

• Material reasoning (understanding how things work in the physical world)

• Interconnected thinking (seeing relationships and patterns)

• Dynamic thinking (inductive reasoning and problem-solving)

• Narrative reasoning (storytelling and meaning-making)

Using this strength-based cognitive framework allows the cognitive assessment process to become affirming, therein supporting self-esteem and emotional wellbeing, and increasing the likelihood that individuals and the teams around them can positively and effectively engage with the assessment report.

Importantly, using an overarching strength-based cognitive assessment framework does not mean that weaker cognitive processes that typically impact literacy learning are ignored. Areas such as working memory, processing speed and various aspects of language processing can still be explored. However, within a strength-based assessment, these areas do not lead the narrative.

Aligning With Our Professional Practice Principles

As educational psychologists, our shared practice principles firmly hold us together. It is this grounding in ecological and strength-based practice, alongside the premise that guides all health practitioners; thou shall do no harm and actions must seek to be beneficent, which enables us to best use cognitive ‘tools as part of a broader holistic assessment process’ (Ministry of Education Kohikohi literature). When used in this way, strength-based cognitive assessment does not contradict ecological practice — it enhances it. It deepens understanding, affirms identity, supports effective and sustainable learning, and is also deeply humane.