Psychological Assessments
Offering thorough assessments and evaluations for adolescents and children.
Neuropsychological Evaluations
Generally, neuropsychological evaluations assess one’s functioning in general cognitive ability, memory and learning, executive functions (including attention and inhibition), language, visual-spatial and visual-motor skills, and processing.
They are conducted for a variety of reasons, and specific tests are used depending upon the referral question being asked. For example, parents may bring their child for a neuropsychological assessment because the child is having trouble reading, and they may be interested in assessing for a learning disorder. Alternatively, their concern may be attention difficulties, so they may be seeking an ADHD assessment or ADHD screening.
Her warm, comforting, and honest approach enables her to engage quickly with even the most reluctant clients.
Psychoeducational Assessment
Assessment of a person’s learning profile involves assessing multiple areas of one’s cognitive and academic abilities, typically referred to as psychoeducational assessment. Therefore, neuropsychological evaluation measures are integrated into academic testing in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the child’s cognitive potential and achieved skills.
Based on the child’s unique profile of strengths and weaknesses, additional measures are then added in order to provide further information and inform recommendations and treatment. For example, if a child struggles on a measure of reading, additional decoding, fluency, and language measures may be completed. Additionally, visual-perceptual measures may be given to rule out an underlying visual-processing deficit, or ADHD screening tests may be used to rule out attention difficulties.
Social / Emotional and Personality Assessments
These assessments typically begin with an in-depth parental interview in order to gain a thorough understanding of their concerns and the history of the child or adolescent’s difficulties. A parent may be concerned that their child is socially isolated, depressed, anxious, or simply not coping with ordinary demands of life, or perhaps their child is having difficulty accepting the challenges associated with a learning disorder.
During the assessment, the parents complete behavior rating scales, which assess observable behaviors related to their child’s emotional state. The child also completes self-report measures about their experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Objective behavior report measures are often supplemented with projective testing, which is more ambiguous and brings to light issues that the client may not be ready to talk about directly but are impacting their functioning nonetheless.
When possible, projective measures are scored according to standardized criteria in order to increase objectivity, reliability, and validity. Areas assessed typically include one’s current emotional state, interpersonal functioning, coping skills, social- and self-perceptions, internal thought processes, and self-esteem and identity.
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