Cognitive Assessment and Training: Dissecting the Significance across Niche Domains

Cognitive Assessment and Training

Did you know that cognitive assessment is the most important predictor of job performance? The assessment is capable of measuring an individual’s capacity for critical thinking and general mental ability. As compared to lengthy interviews, these assessments provide more information about the individual’s likelihood of job performance and success. These involve performing simple tests and answering particular sets of questions.

Cognition is referred to as the brain’s ability to process the information it takes in from an individual’s senses. It includes various intellectual activities, such as making decisions, learning, applying judgment, and thinking, understanding the language, and paying attention. Cognitive assessments are usually undertaken if there is a suspicion of mental impairment or decline.

Cognitive training, on the other hand, is considered to be beneficial for people to enhance and maintain some aspects of cognition. It is mainly aimed at the geriatric population as such improvements can have a vital impact on their mental health, as well as functioning. Commonly known as brain training, cognitive training helps in enhancing the working memory, attention, reasoning, and problem-solving capabilities of an individual.

How Is Cognitive Assessment Beneficial for Hiring Candidates?

  • Prevents Wrong Hiring Decisions: Cognitive assessment helps companies in scanning the applicants and choosing the right ones on the basis of their aptitude and academic level performance. Once the selection process is complete, they use their resources to train the new employees as per their requirements. These tests enable them to select the right candidate and avoid bad hiring decisions during the initial process.
  • Identifies the Hidden Potential: Companies can effectively identify those candidates who may have all the skills required for thriving in an organization through cognitive assessments. This is considered to be ideal for hiring junior candidates who lack past experiences.
  • Improves Retention: Cognitive assessment enables companies to improve their retention rate by hiring the right candidates. This is because the cost of losing an employee is very high.
  • Easy to Conduct: Cognitive assessments are undertaken through computers or laptops in a company. These are not time consuming as the results are declared soon after these tests end. Neither the candidate nor the company have to wait for a long period of time to get the results. These assessments also require fewer resources and are thus cost-effective.

How is Cognitive Training Proving Fruitful for the Healthcare Industry?

Cognitive impairment can occur in late adulthood or early childhood. Early causes may include chromosome abnormalities, genetic syndromes, prenatal drug exposure, and malnutrition. The brain often retains its neuroplasticity till an individual’s late adulthood. Therefore, the need for cognitive training has surged at a rapid pace across the globe.

Increasing awareness among people regarding the availability of such training options and rising geriatric population are pushing the demand in this field. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), the proportion of the global population belonging to the age of 60 years and above will double from 12% to 22% between 2015 and 2050. This trend is expected to continue and thus give rise to various cognitive impairments.

Various government and private organizations are conducting exhaustive research and development activities to come up with cutting-edge cognitive training options. They are doing so to discover novel treatment options for the geriatric population suffering from various disorders. Some of the other institutions are choosing healthy young people for their clinical trials to examine the influence of cognitive training on their mental health.

In February 2022, for instance, Pamukkale University based in Turkey, conducted a clinical trial by including 60 young participants. The trial was aimed at evaluating the effect of game-based, computed-assisted cognitive training on attention for 8 weeks. Participants were provided with a Stroop Test for examining numerous cognitive processes, including information processing and attention.

Similarly, in May 2022, the Duke University collaborated with the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and New York University. They are focusing on developing a Health intervention meant for cognitive training. They have chosen 30 older Chinese Americans for this app-based cognitive training intervention.

Thus, the rising number of clinical trials conducted worldwide by renowned organizations is anticipated to propel the popularity of cognitive training in future years.

Is Cognitive Assessment for Children Positively Influencing Their Education?

Educators have limited their assessments on broader IQ tests or specific educational outcomes for years. These assessments have failed to provide teachers with an adaptable and ongoing technique of customizing education to meet a student’s needs. If students fell below a particular criterion, they would simply be labeled ‘special education required,’ thereby denying them the opportunity to keep up with their peers.

Even though the science behind cognitive development has evolved in recent years, schools have been slow to adopt the new techniques. Thus, students with cognitive impairments are falling behind. The right educational strategy can mitigate issues associated with thought, problem-solving, memory, and judgment. Several large- and small-scale enterprises are striving to introduce novel cognitive assessments for students to help them improve their leading capabilities.

In September 2021, for instance, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA) declared that it is providing its latest Training & Certification program free of cost to academic researchers, faculty members, and students. The organization aims to ensure unrestricted access to its tests, while maintaining accuracy and consistency.

Moreover, Siskin Children’s Institute based in Tennessee, mentioned that nearly 12 out of every 1000 children develop cognitive impairment globally. Varying levels of development delays can be detected in a child’s academic skill sets, social skills, communication capabilities, and emotional development.

Government agencies of both developed and developing countries are conducting awareness programs to educate the masses about the significance of this problem. They are also providing funds to cognitive assessment developers to build low-cost, quick, and simple tests for schools.

What Does the Future Hold?

As per Fact.MR, a prominent market research firm, the global cognitive assessment and training market is expected to reach US$ 9.4 Bn in 2032 and showcase growth at a CAGR of 16.5% from 2022 to 2032. Increasing inclination of companies towards electronic data collection methods is estimated to bode well for the industry.

In January 2022, for instance, researchers at King’s College London declared that a Virtual Reality (VR) test can be used to evaluate the performance of an individual’s functional cognition. They have further mentioned that VR tests will be able to provide a more cost-effective, engaging, and accurate alternative to conventional cognition assessments.The emergence of various innovative technologies in this field is thus projected to augment the industry in future.

Furthermore, the University of South Australia published a new study in May 2022 stating that older people are at high risk of being misdiagnosed with mild cognitive impairments as they suffer from vision problems. The university had selected 24 participants with correct vision to perform two cognitive tests. These participants scored low on their assessments as a set of goggles were used to stimulate age-related macular degeneration. Thus, the industry requires consistent development to come up with state-of-the-art training and assessments in the forthcoming years.

The author is Shubham Patidar, research consultant, technology domain at Fact.MR

About the author

Shubham Patidar

Shubham Patidar is an experienced research consultant at Fact.MR, He is a Client Partner at Fact.MR, with a proven experience in market research & consulting industry and has been closely working on technology vertical.

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