Research behind every Talamo assessment
Talamo builds digital assessments that help schools identify learning needs, understand pupils more clearly and plan effective support.
Every assessment is developed through a structured programme of expert collaboration, pupil testing, statistical analysis and age standardisation. This allows us to combine robust measurement with an experience that works in real schools.
Process
How we build assessments
1
Creating the test material
Each assessment begins with a clear framework of the skills and processes we need to understand. We work with specialist researchers, assessment publishers, educational experts and practitioners to create a broad initial set of tasks. We deliberately begin with more material than the final assessment requires, allowing us to identify the measures that provide the clearest and most reliable insight.
2
Testing the experience
Before large-scale data collection begins, we test every task directly with pupils. These sessions help us assess the clarity of the instructions, the accessibility of the interactions and whether the level of difficulty is appropriate. Feedback and performance data are then used to refine, replace or remove tasks. This ensures that the final experience is not only scientifically robust, but practical for pupils and schools.
3
Validating the measures
We then test whether each task measures what it is intended to measure.
This process differs slightly between assessments. It may involve comparing groups with and without an identified difficulty, examining relationships between different skills, or comparing results with established measures.
Tasks that do not provide reliable or useful information are removed before the final assessment is built.
4
Selecting the final assessment
Once data collection is complete, we analyse which combination of tasks provides the strongest and most useful picture of need. We consider accuracy, reliability, sensitivity and the time required to complete each task. The goal is not to include as much content as possible, but to identify the strongest combination of measures within an assessment that remains practical for schools. Different statistical methods are used depending on the purpose and structure of each assessment.
5
Age standardising
The final assessment is tested with pupils across the full intended age range. This allows us to understand how performance changes with age and to calculate standard scores, percentile ranges and other age-adjusted measures. Age standardisation helps schools interpret each pupil’s results fairly and understand their performance in relation to other pupils of the same age.
Cognition and Dyslexia Risk
Talamo’s dyslexia assessment explores the cognitive and literacy skills commonly associated with dyslexia, including reading, spelling, phonological processing, working memory and processing speed. It also measures verbal and visual ability, helping schools understand whether a pupil’s difficulties are concentrated around a dyslexic profile or form part of a broader pattern of need.
The assessment includes tasks covering phonological awareness, phoneme–grapheme correspondence, nonword spelling, real-word spelling, reading comprehension, reading fluency, verbal working memory, visual-spatial reasoning and processing speed. Together, these measures provide a profile of both the underlying processing differences associated with dyslexia and their impact on reading and spelling.
The original assessment battery combined content adapted for digital delivery from established assessment materials, including the Woodcock-Johnson IV, with additional tasks developed and refined by Talamo. We deliberately created more content than the final assessment required, allowing us to select the strongest combination of measures while keeping the assessment practical for schools to administer.
To validate the screener, we compared pupils with formally identified dyslexia against a carefully selected non-dyslexic control group. We tested several statistical approaches before selecting logistic regression as the final model, then used recursive feature elimination to identify the most informative tasks and balance screening performance against overall assessment length.
The assessment achieved 95% screening accuracy and was initially age-standardised using data from approximately 1,400 pupils aged 7–16. Results are presented using age-referenced standard scores and percentile ranges, alongside a dyslexia risk level and a broader indication of the pupil’s level of need.
More than 5,000 pupils have now contributed to the assessment’s development, standardisation and continued refinement.
Talamo’s maths assessment looks beyond curriculum attainment to explore the underlying skills that mathematical learning depends on.
Children can experience maths difficulty for many different reasons, including gaps in teaching, weak working memory, slower processing speed, language demands, maths anxiety or a more specific profile associated with dyscalculia. The assessment is designed to show where difficulty is concentrated rather than reducing a pupil’s performance to a single score.
It covers core areas of mathematical cognition, including understanding number, recognising quantity, mathematical vocabulary, basic calculation and applying maths in context. Additional measures of working memory, processing speed and spatial reasoning help schools understand the wider cognitive factors that may be affecting mathematical learning.
The assessment includes tasks covering number-line estimation, symbolic number comparison, ordering and writing numbers, subitising, enumeration, mathematical language, arithmetic fluency, word problems and derived facts. This allows schools to compare foundational number skills with the pupil’s ability to apply those skills in taught mathematics.
The primary output is a profile of maths difficulty across the areas assessed. Where appropriate, the screener also flags whether the pattern of performance is consistent with dyscalculia risk. This sits within the broader maths profile rather than acting as a standalone diagnosis.
The assessment was developed alongside Janet Goring, a highly experienced specialist in mathematics education currently on the board of the Assessment and Standards Committee (SASC). It went through a staged programme of task development, pupil testing, reliability analysis, refinement and age standardisation.
The initial pilot involved 333 pupils across 12 schools. A further 954 pupils across 13 schools contributed to the standardisation study, covering pupils aged approximately 7–16. The retained tasks showed strong reliability across the battery, including .963 for Ordering Numbers, .951 for Writing Numbers, .936 for Maths Language and above .89 for the core arithmetic measures.
Executive functioning
Talamo’s executive functioning assessment measures the cognitive processes that help pupils sustain attention, hold information in mind, control responses, switch between tasks and plan their actions.
These skills are central to learning and everyday classroom functioning, but schools often have to rely mainly on observation and behavioural impressions when trying to understand them. Talamo adds direct, performance-based evidence, helping schools see where difficulties may be concentrated across a pupil’s executive functioning profile.
The assessment covers sustained attention, response inhibition, processing speed, verbal attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility and planning. It includes established cognitive task types such as the Sustained Attention to Response Task, Symbol Search, the Flanker task, Number Pattern Matching, Numbers Reversed, Picture Recognition, Task Switching and Tower of Hanoi.
Each task contributes a different part of the profile. For example, the attention task separates lapses in attention from difficulties inhibiting responses, while the working-memory tasks examine how well a pupil can hold and manipulate information. Task Switching measures cognitive flexibility, and Tower of Hanoi explores planning, rule adherence and problem-solving.
The assessment was developed through an Innovate UK-funded research programme focused on improving the identification of executive-functioning difficulties in schools. The initial pilot involved 238 pupils across 14 schools. Tasks were tested for reliability, developmental sensitivity and practical usefulness. Measures that did not perform well enough were replaced or removed, including an earlier Stroop task and a visual working-memory task with an overly high guessing rate.
A further 570 pupils across 13 schools contributed to the standardisation study, covering pupils aged approximately 7–16.
The final battery showed strong reliability across the main measures, including .944 for Symbol Search, .978 for Number Pattern Matching, .918 for Verbal Attention and .895 for Task Switching reaction time.
Rather than producing a single binary result, the assessment shows the pupil’s relative strengths and difficulties across the different executive-functioning domains. This gives schools clearer evidence to support monitoring, targeted intervention and decisions about whether further assessment may be needed.
Considerations
Care when collecting data
Our commitment to creating a diverse and representative dataset is evident in our collaborative efforts with schools across the UK, which ensure optimal testing conditions and maximise engagement. We ensured a demographically accurate spread and attended each school numerous times to oversee the collection.
What next?
Our dedication to refinement and innovation is ongoing. With each test, piece of feedback and new piece of research, we continue to enhance the reliability and effectiveness of our tools.
Technical manuals for Talamo’s assessments are be available to those representing a school, trust, Local Education Authority, or assessment centre. Please email leo@talamo.co.uk.
At Talamo, we are committed to supporting SEND through continuous innovation, careful research and a deep understanding of the communities we serve. In other words, the work never stops, and we will continue to keep schools, families and practitioners updated as new material is released.
See how Talamo supports families and schools
Empowering schools & SENCOs identify and support SpLDs
Talamo is used in over 1000 UK schools to screen entire classes, identify learners early and generate evidence-based reports.
Giving parents clarity and confidence on their child’s learning profile
Talamo can be used by parents to screen their child at home and get a personalised report with clear next steps - no specialist needed.
