IDS-2 | Reviews

Dr Richard Skelton | Child & Educational Psychologist | The Educational Psychologists

The IDS is not only incredibly comprehensive and covers a multitude of different domains but is also an extremely accessible and easily administered assessment. From the conceptualisation of the different subtests to the ease of administration and scoring, the whole of the IDS has the practitioner psychologist in mind. You can instantly tell that many of the issues with other assessments have been addressed within its design, and its intuitive ease of administration means that I have been able to quickly trial new assessments as part of an already tight schedule.

Although I knew that the IDS-2 was a comprehensive assessment, it was surprising to find that it covers all of the current assessments I currently use; and more.  This includes the combination of cognitive, language and curriculum-based assessments I regularly have with me, as well as the social skills and executive functions assessments I alternate between.

From my early experiences, each assessment appears to provide more valuable qualitative information, especially the curriculum related tasks, thereby enabling a better shared understanding of what these mean within consultations with teachers and parents.

In time, the IDS will likely replace the majority of my current assessments, and support in better formulations, holistic assessments and targeting of accommodations and interventions for CYP.

Chartered Educational Psychologist in private practice, 2022

I really enjoyed working with the test. It has taken all the important parts of assessing and combined them into one kit.

SpLD Test Evaluation Committee, August 2022

  • It is useful to have a wide range of assessment materials. Taking the whole kit into a school gives a lot of flexibility if other issues arise during an assessment and the assessor feels that a different or additional direction would be useful (for example if language or SEMH issues arose). 
  • ‘One stop shop’ for range of areas. It would be possible to carry out all of the required elements for a diagnostic assessment using the IDS-2 alone (except that a cognitive profile would require use of some of the intelligence scales which would not normally be available below Level 3).
  • Some subtests are suitable for EAA work; for example, processing speed (parrots and boxes), auditory short-term memory tasks (digit and letter span, mixed digit and letter span), visual spatial short term memory (shape memory and rotated shape memory), single word reading fluency, single non-word reading fluency and reading speed score for comprehension passages to evidence extra time. 
  • The modular structure does make administration easier because it is possible to spread testing over more than one session. Session length can be an issue with some pupils. 
  • Includes individual assessment of aspects of EF and motor skills. 

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