Diagnostic Assessment of Learning Disabilities: From Assessment of Performance To Assessment of Competence

Models underlying diagnostic assessment of learning disabilities are seldom explained and discussed. More often too, those assessments are offered without empirical support. The goal of the current paper is to reflect on the diagnostic assessment of learning disabilities. A distinction can be made between assessments which focus on performance and those which focus on competence. Competence-based diagnostic assessments provide more useful information to practitioners to understand learning disabilities and to organize special education. Historically, the Piagetian theory opened the way to assessments of competence. But the assessments based on Piagetian theory suffer from methodological shortcomings. In this paper, significant changes for diagnostic assessments which are due to the recent development of cognitive psychology are emphasized.