Assessment
Overview of a psycho-educational evaluation
A psycho-educational evaluation is a comprehensive assessment of your child’s individual learning strengths and weaknesses across multiple cognitive (learning) domains. The goal of the evaluation is to explain to you as parents, as well as others who may interact with your child, the logic of how they think and learn.
In this manner, your child’s areas of strength can be used to help them compensate for their areas of weakness. While diagnosis is not the goal of the evaluation, this assessment will often identify specific learning difference (disability), ADD/ADHD, and/or other cognitive/neurodevelopmental delays.
Components of a psycho-educational evaluation:
- Parent interview
- School observation
- Teacher input
- Input from other specialists working with the child, as appropriate
- Test sessions with the child
- Feedback with parents
- Written report
- Attendance at school meetings, as appropriate
The test battery
Testing usually targets each of the following domains of functioning:
- Cognitive (thinking, reasoning, IQ) assessment
- Visual-mediated abilities
- Language-mediated abilities
- Learning and memory assessment
- Attention and concentration/executive functioning skills
- Academic achievement (reading, writing, math skills)
- Phonological processing/retrieval fluency/phonological memory
- Social/emotional development
Description of the psycho-educational evaluation process
Parent interview
- An interview with parents is scheduled in order to obtain an in-depth understanding of the child, both in terms of strengths and areas of concerns.
- Information obtained includes a developmental history, medical history, educational history, and history of social/emotional development.
- Issues pertaining to family dynamics and interpersonal relationships are discussed.
- At the conclusion of this interview, the scope of the evaluation will be discussed with parents, and testing sessions with the child will be
scheduled.
Child assessment
- The evaluation will be scheduled over multiple days in order to ensure that test results are reliable and accurate.
- Children usually tire after a few hours of one-to-one testing and therefore, test results may be affected negatively if individual sessions are too long.
- Two to three sessions are typically needed. Occasionally, shorter, more frequent sessions are deemed more appropriate, especially with younger children. This will be determined jointly between parents and the examiner.
School observation + teacher input
- When appropriate, the child will be observed in school, in order to gain an understanding of the way in which he/she functions within the context of the group and academic setting.
- Information is gathered from the classroom teacher in the way of curriculum-based assessments, behavior ratings, etc.
Consultations and referrals we may recommend:
- Speech and Language Therapists
- Occupational Therapists
- Physical Therapists
- Pediatricians
- Neurologists
- Psychiatrists
Feedback
- Test results are discussed with parents, and a written report summarizing results of the assessment is provided.
- Frequently, a separate session is scheduled with the child so that feedback can be provided to help him/her gain knowledge about the individual learning profile.
- Recommendations for intervention are suggested and individually designed, based on the unique profile of the child.
Follow-up
- This may include attendance at school meetings/IEP, additional sessions with parents to further their understanding of their child’s learning profile, debriefing sessions with the child, etc.
- From intake to feedback, the evaluation process usually takes between 4 to 6 weeks, depending upon scheduling and other needs.