A Call to Action: Open Assessment Measures in Developmental Psychology

Cognitive and behavioural development research often relies on standardised and validated tests, which can indicate whether performance falls within typical or atypical boundaries for a given chronological age. The choice of a test in a research project is not straightforward as most of these tests are owned by publishing companies who limit access and research use of these tests. We present an overview of the most commonly used tests for assessing reasoning, general cognitive ability and behavioural functioning in children, adolescents and young adults. We focus on normed cognitive and behavioural measures, which facilitate the identification of specific difficulties relevant to research on atypical cognitive development within the fields of psychology and education. We discuss the consequences of the limited access to the standardised measures based on a case example where barriers to access significantly limited research design for a big team science project on intellectual disability. We outline a plan for collective action to establish public domain assessment tools. In the interest of scientific progression and international collaboration, research measures should not be subject to restrictive copyright laws.Corresponding author Marta Topor: [email protected]