My goals when conducting assessments are for individuals to know more about who they are and how their brain works, take pride in their strengths, understand why particular tasks or situations are more challenging for them, identify strategies to work around or cope with those risks, and to find the right services and supports to maximize their outcomes. I work with parents and families to better understand the causes underlying the situation so that they leave with clarity about why, appreciation for their child’s strengths and individuality, and clear next steps.
- Before an assessment is scheduled, a phone interview is conducted to determine the goals, history, and appropriateness of assessment. You will be asked to provide me with all school records, relevant medical records, and any previous evaluations that have taken place.
- There are times when you may already have the information you need but may want a more thorough interpretation of that information, or guidance on how to proceed in obtaining the right interventions. I will help identify if assessment or additional assessment is the right direction for your situation, and if I am the right person to work with.
- Educationally relevant assessments may answer questions about testing accommodations, processing differences, giftedness, potential attention deficits, reading problems including dyslexia, writing problems including dysgraphia, math learning disabilities including dyscalculia, anxiety, depression, developmental or cognitive delays, autism spectrum disorders, traumatic brain injuries, and other health impairments that have affected learning or access to learning.
- Assessment plans are tailored to the referring question(s). Parents and teachers are asked for input via interview and completion of forms/rating scales. The length of time spent face to face with the client varies, but assessment appointments never exceed 2-hour windows to ensure high motivation and endurance. It is also important to note that assessments are generally conducted in the morning to capture the best that a student has to offer. Note that students are expected to keep taking any medications they would take during a typical school day to measure the student’s best skills.
- The evaluation is ethically designed to sample skills and provide a measure of potential or ability that does not incorporate areas of weakness. Information processing skills are sampled carefully and may include auditory, visual, attention, memory, speed, storage/recall, visual-motor, executive functioning, and aspects of language. While intelligence is evaluated, my focus is on measuring and explaining which processing skills are most well-developed to support learning, and which are potentially hampering the learning process.
- Evaluations also consider developmental and educational history, sleep quality, social and interpersonal functioning, mood and emotion factors, achievement, and sometimes adaptive skills. Environmental, cultural, identity and historical factors that affect a person’s ability to access and stay engaged with their learning are also considered.
- A thorough report is provided that includes all data from the assessment, formal diagnoses if appropriate, and specific recommendations to the school and parent about eligibility, treatments, accommodations, and modifications. Parents have a face-to-face meeting with me to discuss the results and ask any additional questions they may have; this meeting typically takes place two weeks after the last evaluation date and lasts about 1.5 hours.
- If, after receiving the report and meeting with me, you would like support in attending a meeting with a school or other entity, hourly consultation services are available for advocacy purposes (see Consultation).