Psychological Evaluations Offered
Infant or Developmental Testing
Intelligence Testing
Gifted Assessment
Diagnostic Testing- (e.g. Anxiety Disorders, Mood Disorders, Behavior or Personality Disorders)
Pre-Surgical Assessments
Learning Disabilities
Benefits of Psychological Testing:
- Testing is very helpful to discover a correct diagnosis.
- It also helps differentiate one diagnosis from others (e.g. depression vs. anxiety) that may be similar.
- A psychological assessment can give information about a child’s strengths and challenges.
- It is also helpful to make recommendations for school needs or effective therapy treatment planning.
I conduct thorough psychological evaluations which carefully examine all of a parent’s concerns. My evaluations use gold standard assessment tools to get more information about each. This could include children and adolescents’ functioning in a variety of areas such as, cognitive skills (intelligence), emotional-behavior functioning, personality, and adaptive (self-help) skills. An assessment usually happens over several sessions and may take a few weeks to complete.
Psychological evaluations typically include:
- I carefully review records you provide like other assessment reports, IEP’s, behavior plans, medical records, and treatment summaries.
- I thoroughly interview parents/caregivers to get background information, and get specific details about all of your concerns. I also interview your child, at a developmentally appropriate level. As needed, I do interviews with teachers or providers to gather more information about school issues.
- Caregiver, teacher, or self-report behavioral, emotional, and personality checklists
- Developmental/Cognitive/Neuropsychological Assessment tests which give information about how a person’s performance compares to same age peers. Areas measured may include intelligence or learning, academic knowledge, visual-motor coordination, attention span, memory, and processing speed.
- Other possible parts of an assessment may be a play observation, school observation, or other specific tests as needed.
After I get all of the information and finish the testing we agree on, I interpret the results and write a comprehensive psychological report. I try to highlight all of your child’s strengths and provide ideas for how to build on those. I will provide information about appropriate diagnoses and how your child’s concerns fit those diagnoses. The report will also include many specific and relevant recommendations to best support your child’s needs at home, school, and in the community. I will consider school eligibility categories and provide guidance about how to obtain the right school supports or treatments for your child.
After psychological testing and report are done, we will schedule a session for you to come in and review all the results with me in person. I spend time with parents to be sure that all questions are answered and to provide support in understanding the results.
