Beyond the basic information provided in foundation texts and test manuals, there is a notable scarcity of professional literature addressing complex issues and dilemmas in assessment. At times, psychologists need to make decisions based on their professional experience or personal preferences, and it is possible that some of these decisions are made without adequate justification or reflection. Intern psychologists may be confused by the differing advice they are given by university staff, supervisors and experienced practitioners. Our aim in this project was to identify specific issues in psychoeducational assessment that need clarity, guidance and reflection, not only during postgraduate training, but also across the professional lifespan. Focus groups with educational and developmental psychology interns revealed confusion about aspects of test administration and interpretation, as well as a number of challenging professional issues. The findings have implications for trainers and supervisors, as well as for experienced practitioners.

For psychologists in less developed countries, psycho-educational assessment is often challenging due to a lack of specialist training and a scarcity of appropriate, psychometrically robust instruments. This article focuses on school psychology and psycho-educational assessment in three countries: Bangladesh, China and Iran. Despite differences in demographic and cultural features, these countries share similar issues that restrict the practice of psycho-educational assessment. We conclude that it is important for psychologists in Western countries to support professional training and testing practices in less developed countries.

The case is presented of an 8-year-old boy who was referred for psycho-educational assessment because of difficulties with writing. The article provides an example of the way in which a case unfolds as further assessment data become available, and describes a number of challenging aspects of the assessment process. In this case, dilemmas arose when test results were inconsistent at different time points, and when the results were inconsistent with clinical observations. The case report illustrates the ways in which practitioners can collaborate to make sense of such discrepancies, with each contributing a slightly different perspective or set of skills that, in combination, assist to better understand a child's difficulties.

This article reports an investigation of the views and practices of 203 Australian psychologists and guidance counsellors with respect to psycho-educational assessment of students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs). Results from an online survey indicated that practitioners draw upon a wide range of theoretical perspectives when conceptualising and identifying SLDs, including both response to intervention and IQ-achievement discrepancy models. Intelligence tests (particularly the Wechsler scales) are commonly employed, with the main stated reasons for their use being ‘traditional’ perspectives (including IQ-achievement discrepancy based definitions of SLDs), to exclude a diagnosis of intellectual disability, and to guide further assessment and intervention. In contrast, participants reported using measures of academic achievement and tests of specific cognitive deficits known to predict SLDs (e.g., phonological awareness) relatively infrequently.