Ms Carmel Ryan:

With regard to assessments, with assistive technology, which we are talking about this morning, there are new methods of assessing children. During the summer, Fiacre and five other students in Ireland took part in a University of Cambridge study which used brain imaging. It assessed non-verbal children's understanding of language using brain imaging and computer technology. Children were given a series of tests. They had a monitor, as they would for an MRI scan, and a skullcap with all the electrodes. That measured the brain's response to the different questions. A sentence was read out, such as, "Mary blew out the birthday candles on the door," instead of cake. The child's brain then responded since that did not make sense and that was printed out on the screen. That research is ongoing and will be continued next year. If we could invest in it, there are ways to measure children's intelligence and responses without going back to tests developed in the 1960s.