Assessment

What is a Psychological Assessment?

The purpose of a psychological assessment is to evaluate what is happening in a child's life that may be interfering with his/her ability to reach his/her full potential. Psychological assessment is a process that involves the integration of information from many sources, including standardized psychological tests (administered by the Psychologist), and other information such as a child's developmental and medical history, description of current symptoms and the history of those symptoms, and collateral information from relevant sources, particularly the child's school. Generally, a full battery of psychological tests can take several hours for the psychologist to administer, and several more hours for the psychologist to score, interpret, and to write in a report summarizing the results and recommendations of the evaluation. The report generated from the evaluation will be provided to child's parents and, if requested, to the child's school. This report will include a wealth of information and recommendations useful to a child's parents, teachers, and any other professionals with whom the child is working to make the child's emotional, behavioral, and educational life more healthy, satisfying, and successful.

Depending on your child’s needs, we provide the following types of assessments:

I. Infant/Young Child Developmental Screening:

This gives parents information about their infant’s or young child’s developmental strengths and weaknesses, as well as identifying potential learning, behavioral, or motor problems before school enrollment.

II. Academic Screening:

This gives parents information about their child’s academic strengths and weaknesses for

• School entrance testing

• Screening for reading difficulties

• Screening for math difficulties

• Screening for receptive/expressive language difficulties

III. Full Evaluations:

Your child will be given a comprehensive evaluation to assess cognitive and academic strengths and weaknesses, as well as social, emotional, and behavioral concerns. Your child’s performance based on a number of tests, combined with information from parents and teachers, will be used to determine your child’s unique profile and to develop a written report. Parents will receive verbal and written feedback regarding the information gained during the assessment, as well as practical strategies and recommendations to promote your child’s progress. Evaluations can be conducted for concerns related to (but not limited to):

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD, ADD)

• Learning Disabilities

• Autism Spectrum Disorders

• Developmental Concerns

Click on the links above for a more detailed description of assessments that can be provided for your child's age range.

Treatment

What type of treatment do we provide?

We provide child and family therapy services, group therapy services, and parent coaching. Our approach is to involve parents in our work with children, and to use treatment approaches that have been shown to be effective through recent research. This ensures that each child will be given the most effective services to promote his/her success.  

These services address a broad range of concerns, including (but not limited to):

• ADHD/ADD

• Child behavior problems (including non-compliance and aggression)

• Parenting difficulties (e.g., effective discipline, limit-setting, dealing with tantrums, general parenting stress)

• Anxiety (e.g., separation anxiety, school phobia and refusal, generalized anxiety, social anxiety)

• Sadness or depression

• Bipolar disorder

• Toilet-training, bed-wetting

• Adjustment difficulties (including problems related to parental divorce)

• Treatment for trauma

• Bullying

• Sleep difficulties

• Sibling rivalry

Click on the links above for a more detailed description of treatment services that can be provided for your child's age range.

Consultation

We provide consultations with parents, teachers, and other professionals when requested by parents.