Testing & Evaluation

Comprehensive Psychoeducational Evaluations for Children and Adolescents

Comprehensive psychoeducational evaluations often occur after a child’s or adolescent’s caregivers, parents, or teachers have noted a concern. Before these types of referrals are conducted, a caregiver or teacher will observe a child exhibiting academic, emotional, and/or behavioral difficulties. Frequently, parents are encouraged by a child’s teacher or tutor to pursue a psychoeducational evaluation. Parents often seek these types of evaluations to determine whether their child has the following:

• Developmental Disability
• Learning Difference
• Attention- Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
• Strengths and/or Limitations in certain academic areas
• Social Emotional Difficulty

The comprehensive psychoeducational evaluations include cognitive (intelligence) and academic testing. Additionally, the evaluations have a heavy neuropsychological component that includes assessments of receptive and expressive language, visual spatial, attention, visual and verbal memory, and executive functioning abilities. Self-report questionnaires are given to parents, teachers, and at times the child or adolescent to assess emotional functioning. Each evaluation also includes in-depth clinical interview with parents and the child or adolescent. Depending on the age of the child, a classroom observation may also be conducted at an additional fee.

The intelligence testing typically includes one of the following tests, based on your child’s or adolescent’s age:

• Wechsler Preschool and Primary School Intelligence-Fourth Edition (WPPSI-IV)
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth Edition (WISC-V)
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV)

The academic testing can include one or a combination of the following:

• Woodcock Johnson IV, Tests of Achievement (WJ-IV-Ach)
• Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Third Edition (WIAT-III)
• Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT)
• Gray Oral Reading Tests-Fifth Edition (GORT-5)
• Comprehensive Mathematical Abilities Test (CMAT)
• Feifer Assessment of Mathematics (FAM)
• Test of Word Reading Efficiency, Second Edition (TOWRE-2)

A variety of neuropsychological tests can be administered based on your child’s or adolescent’s age and specific needs. The following list is a sampling of tests that can be administered:

LANGUAGE:

• Expressive Vocabulary Test-Third Edition (EVT-3)
• Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fifth Edition (PPVT-5)
• Woodcock Johnson IV, Tests of Oral Language (WJ-IV-Oral Language)
• Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, Second Edition (CTOPP-2)

MEMORY, LEARNING, ATTENTION, and EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING:

• A Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment-Second Edition (NEPSY-II)
• California Verbal Learning Test, Second Edition (CVLT-3)
• Conners Continuous Performance Test, Third Edition (CPT3)
• Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS)
• Rey Complex Figure & Recognition Memory Test (RCFT)
• Wechsler Memory Scale, Fourth Edition (WMS-IV)

The results of these types of evaluations help identify the child’s strengths and limitations.

Depending on the results of the evaluation, a diagnosis could be provided if the results support a significant discrepancy in scores. After the evaluation is conducted (approximately 6-8 hours of testing over two days) and the self-report questionnaires have been collected, a two-hour feedback session is held in which the parents are provided with a detailed explanation of the results and how the diagnosis was determined. Detailed recommendations and referrals to other professionals are provided at the time of the feedback session. A comprehensive report is provided to the parents after the feedback session has been conducted. Once parents obtain the report, they at times chose to share the information with their child’s teacher, school, pediatrician, therapist, and/or other health care providers.

Many times parents request that a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation be conducted so that their child can receive accommodations in school or on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT. Although a psychologist may provide a diagnosis or specific recommendations, the public school system and the SAT and ACT have their own guidelines of what they consider significant and may not be willing to provide lengthy accommodations. The evaluations that are conducted by Soublis Psychological Associates are comprehensive in nature and meet all of the requirements of which specific tests the SAT and ACT want in an evaluation.

The cost of the evaluation will be determined during the first telephone consultation. Many factors are taken into consideration when deciding what type of testing will be conducted. Therefore, this decision will impact the amount of time your child will spend being evaluated.

Comprehensive Psychoeducational Evaluations for Adults

At times, adults will seek psychoeducational evaluations to obtain accommodations at the undergraduate or graduate level or for standardized tests required for graduate school entry. Typically, adults have been evaluated previously and are seeking confirmation of a previous diagnosis so they can continue to receive accommodations for a learning difference or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Adults spend approximately 6-8 hours being evaluated.

Evaluations for Gifted and Talented

Many parents believe their child or adolescent may be gifted. They can be identified as children who spoke very early, learned to read very early, have a high vocabulary, remember a large amount of material, etc. These children also tend to be under-stimulated in a regular classroom setting and at times can be disruptive.