Bombed the Cogscreen. Do I have a path forward?

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone, I’ve been working with my AME for several months to get past a childhood ADHD diagnosis. We haven’t sent anything to the FAA yet, as we wanted to get everything in order prior to submittal. Anyway, the time came to take the test and I just bombed.. no excuses. My neuropsych said he was surprised based on his interactions with me, but I was in the bottom 10% overall. My AME is on vacation for two weeks and I can’t get in touch with him. Does anyone have experience with a poor Cogscreen evaluation? Is there even a path forward?

 

[Brad Z]

We're assuming you have an active medical certificate application that initiated the cog screen?

 

[KeepWatch]

Was there anything unusual about the circumstances that caused the low score? Stress, lack of sleep, sickness, etc? Because at the very least I would think you'll have to do it again and get a satisfactory score....

I'm no PhD, but bottom 10% seems like you'd be having way more daily life issues than a childhood ADHD diagnosis would suggest. If you do retry, I'd probably go to another psychologist.

 

[Anonymous]

Was there anything unusual about the circumstances that caused the low score? Stress, lack of sleep, sickness, etc? Because at the very least I would think you'll have to do it again and get a satisfactory score....

I'm no PhD, but bottom 10% seems like you'd be having way more daily life issues than a childhood ADHD diagnosis would suggest. If you do retry, I'd probably go to another psychologist.

Not that it’s and excuse, but I was very sleep deprived. I woke up early and had to drive three hours to take the test. I am a project manager professionally and have no issues in daily life.

 

[Anonymous]

We're assuming you have an active medical certificate application that initiated the cog screen?

I don’t have an active medical certificate. My AME wanted to get this done prior to submittal.

 

[KeepWatch]

Not that it’s and excuse, but I was very sleep deprived. I woke up early and had to drive three hours to take the test. I am a project manager professionally and have no issues in daily life.

Get some guidance from others on how to proceed forward for sure, but I would think (my thoughts are worth what you paid for them) if a second try showed satisfactory results you'd be in the clear for that hurdle at least. Sorry it happened this way; those tests are way expensive, not to mention time-consuming.

 

[murphey]

Not that it’s and excuse, but I was very sleep deprived. I woke up early and had to drive three hours to take the test. I am a project manager professionally and have no issues in daily life.

Bingo. Next time - is there any way you could head over to that place the day before, do a little sightseeing, relax, have a good night's sleep, and only drive for a few minutes to the exam? Don't have any coffee or such the day before or that morning for breakfast, yada yada yada.

 

[flyingron]

This is why you willy-nilly don't want to go taking Cogscreens. Even if the FAA never hears about this one, if you take a second, it will adversely impact a subsequent one (the tests are designed to be taken "cold" and have things in them to detect people trying to game them).

You need to step back and find a good HIMS AME to tell you what to do next. A referral to a HIMS neuropsych is almost certainly required and there is likely going to be a lot more testing going ahead (beyond the Cogscreen AE) to "fix" things now.

 

[bbchien]

We're assuming you have an active medical certificate application that initiated the cog screen?

Brad, a lot of guys do the evaluation with NO medical and none pending, to avoid the jeopardy of losing Sport Pilot....

Any history of “Stimulant exposure” = somebody with a license thinks this fellow is cognitively abnormal—> formal evaluation.