The whole child: The myriad of applications with the IDS-2

The Intelligence and Development Scales – Second Edition (IDS-2) is a global cognitive  and developmental assessment for children and adolescents, unmatched in its ability to assess the ‘whole child’ – their knowledge, strengths, and developmental needs, all-in-one complete picture. 

With 30 subtests across six Cognitive and General Development Domains (Intelligence, Executive Functions, Psychomotor skills, Social-emotional skills, Scholastic skills, and Motivation and Attitude) and an extensive age range of 5 to 20 years, the IDS-2 is an incredibly versatile instrument. Designed as a true ‘toolkit’ from which the user can select the appropriate subtests or domains for a testing session according to the specific referral questions they are looking to answer – the IDS-2 actually saves time from using laborious cross-battery assessment methods. 

Click to read our in-depth IDS-2 brochure and take a look at an overview of the IDS-2's structure. 
 

The enormous scope of the IDS-2 means that it is suitable for a diverse range of applications. Uses include identifying and diagnosing intellectual disabilities and learning disorders; evaluating cognitive and psychomotor skills; and understanding social-emotional strengths and weaknesses.

The IDS-2 can be particularly valuable to psychologists working in the education sector – for determining aptitude, assisting with school enrolment, and helping to support adolescents as they prepare for their next life stage, whether that be in education or moving into work. The breadth and depth of the assessment allows psychologists to accommodate the increasingly diverse needs of children and adolescents when preparing an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP) for an education authority or school. And the IDS-2 can also provide evidence for support for children and young people, such as assistance in the classroom or additional exam time.

Our recent case study looks at one child’s journey coping with life and school throughout the pandemic – and how the IDS-2 helped her and her family to get the support she needed.

The IDS-2 has been designed to provide additional information to practitioners as they work through assessing children and adolescents. Some typical referral questions in an education setting that the IDS-2 can help answer are:

• What is the student’s level of intellectual functioning?
• What are the  strengths or weaknesses in general (cognitive) functioning that are boosting or hindering learning?
• What evidence is there of a developmental delay or intellectual disability?
• What specific learning problem exists, or is the difficulty in learning the result of a general intellectual deficiency?
• Are the behavioural problems seen in class partly the result of low intelligence or is there a social-emotional problem?
• Is the student’s poor motor coordination a sign of a particular learning disability?
• Is a high intelligence level causing boredom and resistance to classroom learning?

The IDS-2 is now available, and contains everything needed to get started – including access to online scoring credits and a short e-learning course. To find out more please visit this page where you will find a host of resources or see the IDS-2 FAQs page here.