FAQs

Like a fingerprint, each mind is unique. Mindprint enables parents and educators to understand how an individual child learns best so the child can be given the optimal supports to succeed. At the core of Mindprint is an online, one hour scientifically valid cognitive battery developed at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Mindprint identifies areas of giftedness, learning challenges and cognitive strengths so parents and educational specialists can effectively support each child in school and beyond. Specific recommendations are provided to improve homework efficiency, test performance and learning engagement. Mindprint is used worldwide by schools, private practitioners, and parents.

Mindprint assesses the following 10 skills and provides supports for  additional cognitive skills and all academic skills:

• Reasoning: Abstract, Verbal, Spatial
• Executive Functions: Attention, Working Memory, Flexible Thinking
• Memory: Verbal, Visual
• Speed: Processing, Visual Motor

Every Comprehensive Mindprint subscription includes:

• Online student assessment of 10 core cognitive skills
• Learner profile with expert interpretation of results, including recommendations for helping each student maximize strengths and support any needs across academic subjects
• Personalized learning plan with learning recommendations by academic subject, study skills and social-emotional skill development
• Unlimited access to free learning strategies and product reviews personalized to the student’s learner profile

Schools and tutors should contact us directly for more information about our volume discounts to support personalized learning, social-emotional skills, and test preparation.

Cognitive skills are measures of how you learn most efficiently, not what you know. Most schools NEVER test cognitive skills, so they might not have the data to know how best to personalize instruction. Every student learns a bit differently. By understanding strengths and needs in cognitive skills, you can help every student learn more easily.

Mindprint evaluates 10 core cognitive skills and guides how to personalize successful learning across subjects. Note that these skills are not readily observable so a reliable understanding requires a valid assessment tool or a certified professional.

Executive Functions

• Attention: The ability to sustain focus, even for tasks that you might not find interesting. Biggest impact: all subjects, particularly those a student finds least interesting.
• Working memory: The ability to mentally juggle multiple bits of information in short-term memory. Biggest impact: multi-step problem solving, reading comprehension, and following directions.
• Flexible thinking: Openness to taking feedback and adapting to solve novel problems. Biggest impact: math and science and inferencing while reading. More important in higher grades.

Complex Reasoning/Critical Thinking

• Verbal reasoning: The ability to understand language-based information. Biggest impact: all subjects. Highest correlation with academic achievement.
• Abstract reasoning: The ability to understand non-language-based information, including numbers, shapes and patterns. Biggest impact: math and science, particularly in higher grades.
• Spatial perception: The ability to understand how objects relate in space. Biggest impact: specific areas of math and science like geometry and physics; hands-on activities; fine and performing arts.

Memory

• Verbal memory: How efficiently you encode and recall language-based information. Biggest impact: all subjects, particularly in earlier grades when foundational skills are most important.
• Visual memory: How efficiently you encode and recall objects, pictures and other visual information. Biggest impact: math facts, math and science more generally.

Speed/Efficiency

• Visual motor speed: How efficiently your eyes and hands work together. Biggest impact: hand-writing, keyboarding, note taking, hands-on activities.
• Processing speed: How efficiently you process and respond to new information. Biggest impact: class participation, standardized tests, reading and homework efficiency.

Understand students’ strengths and needs on 10 cognitive skills

Mindprint is designed for English-speaking students ages 8 to 21. Students should also meet the following criteria:

• Reading English at or above a 2nd grade level (e.g. can comfortably read words such as coats, pinch, shape, string, and thumps)
• Can follow simple, multi-step instructions independently. An example of an instruction would be, “You will see letters appear on the screen. Press the space bar if you see the letter X. Do not press the space bar for letters other than X.”
• Be comfortable using a mouse
• Vision to read the screen independently.  Note: If the student wears glasses for reading or working at school, the student should wear glasses throughout the testing.

If you have questions about a specific student’s readiness, please feel free to contact us.

You will receive an email with your student’s Learner Profile within five (5) business days of completing the Mindprint assessment. You can login to your account at any time and see your results if they are available. If you see In Process in your account home, the results are still being reviewed by a Mindprint professional. You will see a Profile link if the results are available.

School and Tutoring Customers please note that there might be up to a 24 hour delay between when you receive an individual’s profile results and when those results are consolidated into your whole class reports and dashboard.

Mindprint follows industry standards and recommends assessing students every one to three years. This should provide sufficient information on how the student is progressing and if their needs have changed. Schools, clinicians, and other professionals sometimes determine it is in a student’s best interest to assess more frequently. If you have questions about re-assessment, please contact us

Mindprint does not offer a diagnosis or a classification. However, parents, schools, and clinicians use Mindprint, in combination with other assessments and observation, to come to a fully informed decision on whether a child should be placed in gifted programs.

Schools that have gifted & talented programs typically require that each student take the school’s standardized evaluation. If a student scores in the top 5% of any of the Mindprint complex reasoning tasks the school might re-consider the student’s gifted eligibility.

Many summer programs will accept Mindprint to meet the eligibility criteria, including:

Summer Institute for the Gifted (SIG) for students who perform two standard deviations above the mean in verbal reasoning, abstract reasoning, or flexible thinking.

Summer Academic and Honors Institute for students in 9th through 12th grades. Contact Director, Dr. Dennis De Luca

Mindprint does not give medical or learning diagnoses. Parents, schools and clinicians do use Mindprint in combination with other assessments and observation to come to a fully informed decision on how to help children with specific learning needs.

Mindprint assessment results can be important objective data used in a student’s IEP or 504 Plan meeting. Mindprint personalized recommendations are often incorporated into a student’s 504 Plan or IEP.  Note that special education laws vary by state and there are distinctions by district, so the school determines how Mindprint results are best used for each student. If you are a school employee or practitioner and would like more detailed information on the Mindprint assessment or how to include Mindprint in your evaluation process, please contact us for additional information.

Mindprint for classroom instruction and personalized learning

• Inform where to allocate time and attention where most students will benefit
• Provide evidence-based approaches to learning that will elevate all learners

Mindprint for MTSS

• Objective, data-informed insight into which students need more support (Tier 2+) and why
• Specific, evidence-based approaches of how to individualize instruction independent of curricula

Mindprint for Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)

• Objectively distinguish learning needs from social-emotional and/or behavioral needs
• Scaffold evidence-based interventions according to individual student needs

Mindprint for Classroom Managment

• Informs balanced classroom distributions that account for academic, behavioral and social-emotional variability in learners
• Empowers teachers with the tools and choices to make data-informed decisions for their whole class instruction, small group differentiation and individual student support

Mindprint offers significant volume discounts for schools. Just as we know every child is unique, we appreciate every school is unique. It’s our goal to help you use Mindprint in a way that will best meet your goals. To get started, contact us here

Mindprint is used to support academic tutoring as well as standardized test prep (ACT, SAT, ISEE, SSAT, etc.) Mindprint’s test prep profile identifies which test (ACT or SAT) is optimal and a target score range. If you’re a tutor and would like to use Mindprint in your center and take advantage of our significant volume discounts, contact us here

Mindprint’s cognitive battery was developed by neuroscientists in the Brain Behavior Laboratory at the Perelman School of  Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Known as the “Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery” (CNB), it is a series of computerized tests that measure accuracy and speed of performance in major domains of cognition. It has been tested in over 100,000 participants worldwide including more than 10,000 children, 50,000 members of the armed services. Read more about the neuroscientific evidence.

FUN FACT: The adult version of the assessment is used by NASA to evaluate cognition of astronauts!

The Assessment includes a series of 9 short modules. All nine modules require students to respond to online prompts, in a puzzle-like format. Unlike school achievement tests, there are no reading passages and no math computations.

To read customer feedback on Mindprint, click here

All assessment instructions are displayed in written form and have professional audio voice-over. The instructions can be replayed as often as the student needs. The adult proctor should not need to read the instructions but can repeat them to the student for reassurance if it will be comforting. To preserve the integrity of the results, adults should not provide any additional guidance that is not in the instructions.

Please note that Mindprint is designed for students reading at a second grade level and can follow simple, multi-step instructions independently. If you have any additional questions about a student’s readiness for Mindprint or test administration, please contact us.

Mindprint is self-administered so any adult can proctor the assessment. All of the instructions are displayed in written form and have professional audio voice-over. The adult’s most important roles will be to set up a clean desk space for the student in advance of testing, including having an external computer mouse, reserve approximately 60 minutes to take the assessment, and be sure that the student is not interrupted or distracted while testing.

Registered customers can access the full instructions here.

One way to understand the difference between statewide standardized achievement tests and Mindprint is this: an achievement tells you what your student knows or has mastered, while Mindprint helps you understand why a student is performing at that level. For example, a standardized achievement test may show that your student is reading at a level below his or her peers but will not tell you why. Mindprint will help you understand if this performance is due to difficulties with processing speed, complex reasoning, or memory. Once you understand why a student is struggling, you are much better positioned to provide the best supports. We expect that Mindprint will provide you with significant insights not offered by standardized school achievement tests.

Mindprint is also different from the CogAT and Otis-Lennon ability tests

The CogAT and Otis-Lennon are well-developed, normed tests that will provide a valid indication of a student’s overall abilities in math and language. However, they might not assess the full range of skills needed to effectively determine why a student might be struggling or excelling.

Mindprint evaluates strengths and needs in cognitive skills such as working memory, attention and processing speed that are not analyzed by group-administered ability tests.

If the district only offers CogAT and Otis-Lennon tests once in an academic career, Mindprint can be helpful in understanding if a student’s capabilities have changed and are developing faster or slower relative to peers.

The Learner Profile will show the student’s learning strengths and needs on ten skills across the core domains of speed, executive functions, complex reasoning and memory. It will show your students’ relative and absolute strengths and needs and provide recommendations for supporting your student across subjects.

The Academic Profile aligns your student’s strengths and needs from the Learner Profile to each academic subject and study skills. Understand which subjects will come easily and which may require more effort or support. The Academic Profile includes specific strategy recommendations to support your student for each learning strand.

Login to our demo site to see samples of the the Learner Profile and Academic Profile and our classroom reports for personalizing instruction.

How does Mindprint improve academic outcomes?

The Mindprint Profile explains how your student learns best. The Academic Profile identifies where your student might need support, why, and what evidence-based strategies you can use to help your student succeed.

Should students see their Mindprint Profile?

This is a personal decision based on the student’s age, maturity and likely reaction to this information. Regardless of whether you choose to share the Learner Profile with a student, keep in mind that all students benefit from a better understanding of their learning strengths so they develop self-confidence and metacognition.

Learn more about options for sharing the profile with your student click here

Mindprint can help each student decide whether to take the SAT or ACT and how to prepare for either test. Our proprietary algorithm can predict your probable scores on both tests based on your Mindprint profile. We explain your strengths and needs through the specific lens of these standardized tests to help optimize each student’s score. We can provide this service to tutors for test prep, schools whose states have an ACT or SAT graduation requirement, and individual families.

Please contact us to learn more.

Learning strategies are expert-recommended approaches for improving learning outcomes. They include approaches to help students understand new information, remember more easily, read more efficiently and focus. All of our recommended strategies are research-based and free to everyone. Since we have no advertisements on our site, you should feel comfortable having students browse strategies as well.

Mindprint recommends and prioritizes evidence-based learning strategies for each learner using a rigorous three step process.

• All of our strategies are based on best practices evidenced in scientific literature. Our educators closely monitor science of learning research to ensure we are providing you with the most up-to-date research. You can always find the scientific basis on the Why it Works (The Science of Learning) tab of each strategy
• We cross-check our own research with Digital Promise’s Learner Variability Navigator to ensure we are meeting the most rigorous standards for both evidence-based research and alignment to the cognitive skills only Mindprint measures reliably at scale
• We continuously optimize the strategy prioritization for each learner based on Mindprint proprietary algorithms based on ongoing data analysis

Personalized learning plans are included in every student’s Mindprint Toolbox. Personalized learning plans provide the most beneficial instructional and study strategies based on how the student learns best from the results of the Mindprint Profile. Personalized learning plans cover six core categories and over 500 evidence-based strategies:

• Homework and Study Skills
• Reading
• Writing
• Math
• Group Work/Collaboration
• Self-Awareness/Growth Mindset

Personalized learning plans enable teachers and parents to set goals and track progress based on academic and social-emotional needs. Given the importance of student voice and choice, plans are designed with maximum flexibility so strategies can be easily adapted to evolving needs and interests.

Individualized reading plans are available at no additional charge for students at all age and reading levels. Individualized reading plans provide instructional supports across five core reading skills: phonological awareness, reading comprehension fiction reading comprehension informational texts, reading fluency, and vocabulary. Students who have difficulty in even one of these skills could have lower than expected performance on standardized reading tests. Individualized reading plans can be particularly beneficial for students who are growing more slowly than peers in upper elementary and middle school.

If you are a Mindprint customer and would like more information on how access to the personalized reading plan, please contact us.

What types of products are included in the Toolbox?

In addition to learning strategies, Mindprint has reviews of approximately 2,000 educational products, including apps, websites, games, and workbooks. All of the products are reviewed by certified teachers or child psychologists who understand how students learn best.

What standards does Mindprint use to evaluate educational learning products?

Mindprint uses its own proprietary rubric to for educational product reviews. Our rubric was designed based on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines version 2.0. The UDL guidelines began as a project of the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum (NCAC), a cooperative agreement between the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) and the U.S. Department of Education. UDL guidelines have been extensively reviewed by teachers, researchers and other practitioners. They are nationally accepted standards for evaluating curricula with their goal to ensure curricula are suitable and optimally challenging for all types of learners. If you are interested in learning more about UDL click here.

Mindprint has adapted the UDL guidelines to make them relevant to the supplemental learning products with terms more familiar to most teachers and parents. In some cases, we have also added our own criteria to assess appropriateness for students with specific interests and cognitive needs. Underneath every product review you can see how the product performed relative to the UDL-inspired criteria as well as if the product will be most suitable for students with specific cognitive strengths, needs or personal interests.

Why does Mindprint include games?

We believe playing games with students is one of the best ways to help strengthen cognitive skills. Research shows that when students play an educational game with an adult, they learn more from the game. ABest of all, approaching skill-building in a fun and engaging way will not feel like work.

Games are particularly important for teaching the 21st century skills that are coveted by employers but not always fully developed in the classroom. These include skills such as cooperation, flexible thinking, creativity, self-expression, and self-control.

While the impact of playing games may not be as measurable as other educational tools, playing quality games with students will result in observable improvements over time.

Mindprint offers an extensive selection of game reviews. Our games target a wide range of skills, from specific academic topics to cognitive skills. You can explore games based on a student’s interests and competitive nature, as well as the skills you want to reinforce. Picking a game that a student will enjoy is essential in making games a productive instructional tool.

To read more about games, click here

To read about 21st century skills & flexible thinking, click here

To read about the importance of parental involvement, click here

Has Mindprint developed any of its own products?

Mindprint does not develop its own products – we are content agnostic. We look for the best products on the market and evaluate them.

Does Mindprint profit from selling products?

Mindprint’s reviews are independent and unbiased. Because Mindprint does not develop its own products, we do not benefit when you choose one product over another. Our goal is to help you select the content that can best improve academic and cognitive skills based on the child’s Learner Profile. Many of Mindprint’s favorite app recommendations are free as are our psychologist-recommended learning strategies.

In some cases, when you purchase a product through the Mindprint website we may receive an industry-standard commission from our channel partners regardless of the specific product you choose.

I am a manufacturer. How can my educational product be included in the Toolbox?

If you are a manufacturer or publisher and would like us to review your products, please click here to contact us.

Your login is the email address you used to create an account when you paid for your subscription. If you have forgotten your password, click on the “Forgot Password” link on the login screen and you will be emailed a new, temporary password. Once you login with this password for the first time, you will be asked to create a new, permanent password.

Once the student finishes the assessment, our team evaluates the data within five business days. You will receive an email when the student’s learner profile is available is available in your account home.

If you do not want the student to see the learner profile, you have the option to create a student account. The navigation bar at the top of each screen has an option to put the site in restricted access which allows a student to login and use the Mindprint Toolbox but prohibits access to the learner profile. If you are logged in and cannot see the learner profile check to be sure you have a blue notebook icon in the navigation bar. Student restricted access is denoted by a pink start icon.

The Mindprint assessment can be taken on any desktop or laptop computer, PC or Macintosh. You will need an external computer mouse and keyboard. You will need Internet access to download each part of the battery, but the Internet speed will not impact the test or the student’s performance.  The student’s learner profile, personalized learning plan, and Toolbox will be usable on any device.

IMPORTANT:  You cannot take Mindprint on a tablet or smartphone device and you must use an external computer mouse and keyboard.

We strongly recommend you use the most recent version of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to take the Assessment. If necessary, you can use Internet Explorer v11 or higher or Apple Safari v7.0.5 or higher. The browser must allow JavaScript and cookies and have Adobe Flash plug-in.

After taking the Assessment, the Mindprint website will support most browsers.

Adobe Flash Player Plug-In software is required to take the Assessment.  It is free and can be downloaded at http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer

After agreeing to download the software, follow the prompts provided by Adobe. Check your browser security settings to be sure it allows access to JavaScript and Flash content.

Click here to view the instructions. You will need to be logged in to your Mindprint account. What is most important to know is that you will need an external computer mouse, a clean desktop, and approximately one hour.

When printing your learner profile, always use the pink print button in the top right corner of your report. If you are still having problems when using this button, go into your printing options and find “Show Details.” Check the box “Ignore Scaling and Shrink to Fit Page Width”.

If your student has an up-to-date cognitive evaluation that you believe accurately reflects your student’s cognitive strengths and needs, you can subscribe for a Toolbox that includes the personalized learning plan. You will be given the opportunity to indicate your student’s strengths, relative needs, and interests so we can provide you with customized recommendations.

In general, Mindprint does not offer refunds.  However, if you feel that Mindprint’s services did not meet your expectations, please contact us so we can address your concerns.  We strive for 100% customer satisfaction.

Contact us here

All assessment results are analyzed relative to a national sample of children of the same age.  Children have a natural progression of development and the expected accuracy and speed will differ by age.  In order to have the most accurate understanding of the student’s strengths and needs, we ask that you provide an accurate month and year of birth.

If you ultimately decide to share your Mindprint results with third parties for potential accommodations, these third parties will need to have an accurate name and age for their records.  Your learner profile will print with this information in the top left hand corner.

Mindprint is committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and security of our users. The results of your Mindprint evaluation belong strictly to the account holder, and individual results will never be shared by Mindprint.

Mindprint is committed to providing a secure, user-controlled environment for our services. We adhere to strict privacy and security standards, and comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) policies. The site is intended for parents, teachers and other adults, and not intended to be used by children under the age of 13. We encourage use of the site by children over the age of 13 only with adult supervision. Children under the age of 18 may not subscribe to or create their own account with this site.

Since Mindprint never uses your student’s information for any purpose other than developing your the learner profile, your choice of name has no impact on Mindprint. However, using an incomplete or incorrect name may not be advisable if you wish to share the results of the Mindprint evaluation with the school or other educational institution now or in the future. The name that you use during registration will appear on the student’s learner profile.

Mindprint does not sell, lease, or rent you or your student’s personal information to anyone, for any reason, at any time. We are fully committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and security of our users.

Click here to read the Mindprint Privacy Policy

Click here to read the Mindprint Terms of Use

You may see websites that claim to be able to determine a student’s preferred learning style, such as visual, auditory, tactile or kinesthetic. Although your student might express a preference for a certain approach, there is no scientific evidence validating the effectiveness of learning styles.

Although the learning style concept feels right, it is not a well-accepted, scientific approach to understanding and improving academic performance.

Cognitive skill assessments, by contrast, have over 100 years of evidence-based scientific backing.

To read about learning styles, click here

Mindprint offers what we believe to be is the only fully online valid and normed online cognitive test for children under the age of 21. Unless the results of a cognitive test are interpreted in the context of an appropriate peer group of developing children, they are unlikely to be accurate. If you are considering online alternatives, you may want to investigate who created the test and whether scores are based on a large sample of children and are properly normed and validated. To be assured that the test is valid you will want to review the peer-reviewed research on the test.

Online assessments offer pros and cons in comparison to traditional psycho-educational evaluations. While online assessments can meet the needs of many families, they might not be the optimal choice for everyone. Mindprint is best-suited for children ages 8 to 21 who are reading at a 2nd grade level and can follow multi-step directions independently. If you have questions about whether Mindprint will be suitable for your child, please email us with your questions.

You can read the peer-reviewed research on Mindprint’s test here

To read about cognitive ability and psycho-educational testing, click here

Among the educational apps and websites you may consider are a category called “brain trainers.” These sites offer cognitive exercises for struggling students and adults to improve learning skills. Mindprint evaluates many of the same skills that brain trainers claim to improve. However, Mindprint makes no claims of improving these skills, just accurately measuring them at a given point in time.

If you decide to use a brain training service, you should carefully investigate the company’s research and claims. You might find that an approach is not scientifically valid or not normed to children of a similar age. Moreover, because exercises are presented repeatedly over a defined period, the results may demonstrate an improvement in test-taking, and not a lasting improvement in cognitive performance. If you are considering brain training, we recommend choosing an approach by reading independent articles that validate efficacy. You will want to confirm that any positive effects have been validated in children.

To read about brain training, click here

Mindprint can be an important and affordable first step in understanding a student’s needs before determining if more in-depth evaluation and supports are necessary. While no tool can replace observation of a skilled professional, in many markets there are wait times of 3-6 months to have a cognitive evaluation with a preferred practitioner. Costs typically range from $1,500-$5,000 depending on location. Mindprint can be a useful solution to support a student while awaiting a full cognitive evaluation. In the case where a full evaluation might be beneficial, Mindprint results can help identify which practitioner specialty might be most appropriate given objective data on the student’s strengths and needs.

Mindprint can also be an excellent choice for students for whom a full evaluation is not necessary. All student’s benefit from a clear understanding of their learning strengths and needs.

The table below provides a more detailed understanding of how Mindprint compares to the specific alternatives you may be considering: