Psychological Assessment - Rise Intervention

HOW CAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT HELPFUL FOR CHILDREN ?

Psychological assessment is very helpful in understanding the strengths and challenges children may have in their cognitive, behavioral, and emotional functioning. The psychological assessment process allows for diagnostic clarity and individualized recommendations. Often children who are struggling with academic work, social interactions, and emotion regulation have atypical neurological development that can be identified through psychological assessment. This allows for parents, teachers, and therapists to provide intervention and accommodations needed to allow each child to reach their potential.

WHAT IS THE PROCEDURES?

Enquiry

Parents will call to understand the services that provided and the fees structure.

Intake Evaluation

Psychologist will interview the child and their parent(s)/care taker(s).
Psychologist would like to understand more about the child, including family, medical, developmental, educational history and etc.

Assessment

Psychologist will choose the assessments that are most helpful for the child.
During testing, the child will be asked questions and given tasks to assess a range of their abilities.
Parents or teachers may also be given standardised questionnaires to fill in.

Report Preparation

Psychologist will use two weeks time (or more) to analyse the test results and write an integrative report for the child.

Feedback session

Psychologist will review the results of the assessment with the parents including identifying strengths and areas of challenge.
Psychologist will offer recommendations for the child and the family to incorporate for future success.

Start Therapy and Intervention

Parents would be able to get a better idea about what kind of interventions can be helpful for the children.
The child will be able to start speech therapy, occupational theray, early intervention program, etc.

WHAT KIND OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT ARE THERE?

IQ test (i.e. Leiter-3, Wechsler IQ Test)

Cognitive assessments or intelligence tests are used to determine a child’s learning capability by identifying their cognitive strengths and weaknesses. Getting an accurate IQ score can help parents to know their child’s intellectual ability and potential that allows parents and teachers make good educational decisions for them. IQ test can assess various areas of cognitive capacity, for example:

Visual Spatial: the ability to evaluate visual details and understand visual spatial relationships.
Fluid Reasoning: the ability to use conceptual information from visual details and apply that knowledge.
Working Memory: the ability to learn, manipulate and retain information to complete new tasks.
Processing Speed: the ability to quickly process and make judgements about visual information.

Doing an IQ test with children help assist in the examination of:

Intellectual Giftedness.
Diagnosing learning difficulties or disabilities in children.
Intellectual difficulty or disability.

Adaptive Behavioral Test (Conners EC, Conners-3, Vineland-3, ABAS)

Adaptive Behavioral test mean to measure children’s functional intelligence which is generally defined as one’s ability to behave adaptively in daily life. Specifically, it includes the child’s ability to express and comprehend language, behave appropriately in interpersonal situations, understand and use social behaviors, protect him/herself, and care for him/herself, in terms of personal hygiene and domestic independence. The scale measures adaptive behavior in three major domains:

Communication Domain: evaluates the receptive, expressive, and written communication skills of the child.
Daily Living Skills Domain: measures personal behavior as well as domestic and community interaction skills.
The Socialization Domain: covers play and leisure time, interpersonal relationships, and various coping skills.

Developmental Test (Mullen Scales of Early Learning)

The developmental test serve a purpose of assessing cognitive and motor ability of infants and preschool children between the ages of birth to 68 months.Five scales – Gross Motor, Visual Reception, Fine Motor, Expressive Language, and Receptive Language.

Benefits:

Five scales provide a complete picture of cognitive and motor ability.
Standardization and reliability data.
Identifies a child’s strengths and weaknesses
Assesses early intellectual development and readiness for school.
Provides a foundation for successful interventions.

Autism Screening Test (CARS-2,GARS-3)

Research has found that Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) can sometimes be detected at 18 months or younger. However, many children do not receive a final diagnosis until they are much older. This delay means that children with an ASD might not get the help they need. The earlier an ASD is diagnosed, the sooner treatment can begin. Autism Screening tools are designed to help identify children who might have developmental delays.

Dyslexia Screening Test (DST-J, DEST)

Screening tests are designed to give an indication of possible dyslexic difficulties. Where the test indicates a moderate or high probability of dyslexic difficulties, the best course of action is to follow up with a full diagnostic assessment. This would determine the precise nature of dyslexic and related difficulties.

Projective Test (H-T-P & K-F-T Drawing test, Thematic Apperception Test)

Projective tests are types of personality test in which children offers responses to ambiguous scenes, words, or images. Projective tests are intended to uncover feelings, desires, and conflicts that are hidden from conscious awareness. The goal of such tests is to uncover the hidden conflicts or emotions that the children project onto the test with the hope that these issues can then be addressed through psychotherapy or other appropriate treatments.

HOW MUCH WILL TESTING COST?

Psychological testing involves administration, scoring, and interpretation of tests; it also requires the psychologist to prepare a written report and meet with parents to review the results. The cost of testing varies depending on the battery of tests required and will be determined during the intake evaluation. The payment for a full assessment will cover the total number of hours required by the psychologist(s) to complete the full evaluation process from testing time with the child to results review session with parents.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

At the intake evaluation, it is helpful if parents bring any previous assessments that have been completed by other professionals, such as Speech Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist, Optometrist or from the school if your child has an IEP.

To help testing run more smoothly, make sure parents or children get plenty of rest the night before, eat a meal with protein before coming to testing, and takes any medications as prescribed. Please feel free to bring any healthy snacks for the child.

The testing process can be anxiety provoking. Therefore, we take great care to provide the child with a comfortable environment and incorporate breaks into the testing process. This can include playing a short game, take a quick walk, or eat a snack to avoid fatigue.

Preparing the child for testing will minimize anxiety and encourage cooperation: try to avoid using the word “test” as this tends to provoke anxiety in school-aged children, explain to your child that s/he will be meeting with a psychologist alone.