Limited Weekend Assessments Available!
What is an Assessment?
An assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of a child’s functioning. You may also hear the terms “psychological evaluation,” “testing,” to refer to this process. An assessment uses multiple sources of information to gather an understanding about a child’s behavior, including any underlying diagnoses that may be contributing to difficulties at home, school, or with friends. Consider an assessment like geolocation: we use multiple "satellites", aka informants, to best pinpoint your child’s current functioning. Some of these satellites are parent-report, child-report, school input, direct testing, and clinical observation. We use empirically supported tools to provide a detailed description of your child to inform treatment recommendations and ideas for support.
Assessment or testing in young children is a more dynamic, creative, and individualized process than that of adults. This may involve adapting how we test (e.g., talking while playing games), where we test (e.g., walking on the American Tobacco trail behind our office), and how we get the information me need (e.g., more extensive information from the adults in the child’s life).
Questions an Assessment can help answer:
- What’s going on with my child? Why are they doing (or not doing) ______?
- Does my child have a learning disability?
- Does my child have autism, ADHD, or anxiety?
- Why isn’t therapy working in the way we expected?
- Could my child benefit from accommodations in school, like an IEP/504 plan, extended time on tests, or preferential seating?
- What school setting may be best for my child based on their learning profile?
- Is my toddler developing the way they should be?
- Why is my child having a hard time attending and staying in school?
- Is my child’s brain (or neurotype) different from their peers?
- How do I best support my child moving forward?
How is an assessment different from a standard intake?
A standard intake session is often a brief overview of your child’s top concerns at the moment, things like regulating behavior, anxieties, or attending school. This happens at the outset of any therapy and is not more extensive than 1-2 sessions of understanding child and/or parent concerns.
An assessment, or testing, is a much deeper dive into your child’s behaviors, including understanding what might be at the root of their concerns, to better guide treatment and intervention recommendations. An assessment is a lengthier process that requires multiple sessions with the child, parents, and clinical psychologist.
How does an assessment at TAP work?
An assessment at TAP is structured but with flexibility. This means it generally takes the same shape, but does allow some modifications depending on your child’s needs. Our goal is to get to know your child from different perspectives, at their level, and within their comfort zone.
- First, we start with a parent interview intake to understand your child’s primary concerns. This may include a semi-structured interview with one or both caregivers. A second parent interview session may also be conducted to ask about early developmental history, in the case of a question about possible autism spectrum disorder.
- Second, your child is scheduled to visit the TAP clinic to work directly with the clinical psychologist. Usually we see children for a 3-hour session, although for much younger children this is closer to 1.5-2 hours. Children can have two or three sessions total, depending on their motivation, engagement, and the presenting concerns.
Depending on the assessment question, your child may complete an IQ test (brain games, blocks, puzzles, word puzzles), a get-to-know-you game (reading books together, pretend play- if age appropriate, cartoons, etc.), achievement testing (school-related tasks like reading, writing, math), some tests at a computer, and, age-appropriate self-report questionnaires or interviews.
We work with your child at their readiness level. This often looks like taking a lot of breaks, having snacks, going to walk outside, using fidgets, playing games, and incorporating your child’s interests into sessions. For young children (<5 years), parents are often present during the entire testing process.
- Third, we have parents and collateral sources (usually school, but sometimes other adults who may know your child well) complete questionnaires online about your child’s behavior in different settings.
- Lastly, the clinician compiles and integrates all the obtained information into a detailed, comprehensive report. The report includes formal diagnoses, if any are made, and customized recommendations to guide the next steps for your child. These recommendations may include treatment recommendations at TAP, warm hand-offs to providers outside of TAP, ideas for school-based accommodations, and online and virtual resources.
The results of the assessment are conveyed to the parents in a 60-90 minute feedback session, with the option to add on additional sessions to convey results to the child in a developmentally-appropriate way.
This process is all about making you and your child comfortable. Our clinic space is friendly for all ages- we incorporate weighted blankets, fidget toys, snacks, rewards and prizes, and visual schedules to help kids get through testing sessions. Our space and our clinicians do our best to avoid white coat anxiety- we are dressed like teachers at school and talk about playing “brain games”. Most of our kids have a great time in the assessment with one-on-one attention, positive reinforcement, high praise, and working towards a chosen prize. If you were a fly on the wall at TAP, you would have seen us playing dodgeball in the halls, walking outside on the American Tobacco Trail, checking out the sweet snacks in the break room, picking out a beanie baby as a prize, and kids leaving with smiles.
If you are a parent of a young child or toddler, you might be wondering, “but my kid doesn’t do any of these things right now”- and that is absolutely okay! We meet your child where they are. For children who are not yet speaking, we use nonverbal metrics of development, including some puzzles, fine and gross motor tasks like pennies into a penny bank, color matching, and pictures to obtain information about how they are processing the world. We understand not every kid sits at a table to focus- we play a lot on the floor, use stickers, run around, and use parental cues to help us understand when kids may be at their limit.