If your child is struggling emotionally, behaviorally, or academically, a psychological assessment can help. Perhaps your child has tried therapy or medication in the past and nothing has seemed to provide the right answer or the correct “fit.” Or maybe your child is reportedly struggling academically or behaviorally at school and the teachers or school personnel are requesting an assessment, although these behaviors are not present at home. There are a myriad of reasons to seek out an assessment for your child, whether the referral is coming from the parent, the child, the child’s school, or providing clinician.
A psychological assessment is often the key component in comprehensively understanding a child’s functioning by using objective assessment measures to gather data in multiple areas of the child’s life to best understand what they are struggling with and to provide tangible solutions. A typical assessment includes data collection from a child’s parents and caregivers, from their school, from any outside therapies (such as occupational or physical therapy), pediatrician reports, and potential information from coaches, mentors, or tutors in extracurricular activities such as sports, tutoring, organizations, or clubs at school.
The psychologist uses this outside information in conjunction with objective assessment measures to comprehensively understand a child’s functioning in multiple environments. Children are impacted by their biological development, cognitive development, and by peer interactions and relationships, family relationships, their engagement within their community, and so on and so forth. To best explain what is impacting a child in both positive and negative ways, a psychologist utilizes the assessment to best contextualize the symptoms within the child’s life. Objective assessment measures often include a cognitive assessment or IQ test, an academic achievement assessment, measures of executive functioning, adaptive functioning, and social or emotional functioning.
Psychological assessments can be most beneficial for kids in the following ways:
1. Diagnostic Clarification: First and foremost, an assessment will provide diagnostic answers and help to differentiate comorbid diagnoses, whether there is a learning deficit like Dyslexia or Intellectual Impairment, a mood disorder such as Anxiety or Depression, executive dysfunction such as ADHD, or perhaps a neurodevelopmental diagnosis such as Autism. Finding the appropriate diagnosis is a necessary first step in finding the most appropriate treatment options.
2. Treatment Recommendations: A comprehensive assessment allows the examining psychologist to recommend the most appropriate treatment options given the diagnosis. Finding the most effective treatment is critical in building a child’s confidence, their relationship to mental health treatment, and in providing the right tools to ensure their success.
3. Clarification of Symptoms: A good assessment and following feedback session allows families the opportunity to learn about the child’s symptoms and better understand what the child is experiencing. Kids often struggle to verbalize their experience, so an assessment creates clarity for the family in better understanding what is going on.
4. School-Based Accommodations: A psychological assessment is an excellent (and often required) tool in allowing schools to best help children succeed by better understanding their symptoms and providing the best support the school can provide to facilitate academic success. Assessments may also provide evidence for the benefit of additional time on standardized testing, such as the ACT or SAT. Another common accommodation for standardized testing includes taking the assessment in a private room with limited distractions. A psychological assessment provides objective data and support when these accommodations are necessary for the child based on academic, cognitive, or executive functioning deficits that place the child at a disadvantage for standardized testing.
5. Informing Medication Options: A psychological assessment is often a very critical component of medication management. A psychiatrist, pediatrician, or nurse practitioner oftentimes requires a full or abbreviated assessment to best understand symptoms and helps to inform the provider on what symptoms require psychotropic treatment. An assessment provides an integrative approach so that a provider may better understand the individual’s context, their family history of mental health diagnoses, prior treatment regimens, any history of addiction, and co-occurring disorders that may impact the effectiveness of medication. Research supports both medication and therapy as the most effective combination for the treatment of depression, for example. When there are co-occurring disorders a medication provider may need to discern what course of medication would best address specific symptoms within the context of other diagnoses and therapies.
6. Higher Education and Career Planning: While a psychological assessment typically focuses on problematic symptoms that are impairing in some way, it can also be used as a platform to facilitate academic success in college and assist in vocational and career planning options. Psychological assessments provide very specific cognitive testing and the ability to assess vocational interests and academic areas of strength, which often play a role in helping someone determine what career field makes the most sense or what higher education options are most suitable. Psychologists can help an individual problem-solve these decisions based on strengths-focused objective assessment measures.
If you are considering a psychological assessment for your child for diagnostic clarification, treatment recommendations, to better understand the child’s functioning, for school-based accommodations, to inform medication, or to best facilitate the child’s success overall, now is the right time for the assessment! After an assessment parents often say they wish they had sought out a full and comprehensive psychological assessment earlier to help their child obtain necessary resources earlier on. Even young children can participate in a psychological assessment and obtain valid results that are helpful in treatment planning. Most of the time assessments are required every few years to maintain accommodations, to change medications, and to simply better understand how an individual changes based on normal developmental shifts. Overall, seeking an assessment at any time in a child’s life can be beneficial and provide guidance, clarity, and the best help for that child.
If you seek out an assessment at Growth Psychology, the steps are easy and the entire process is seamless and quick!
Step 1: Schedule a consultation phone call through the website, Growthky.com
Step 2: Schedule the initial diagnostic evaluation online through the website. The initial evaluation can include the child or parents only as an opportunity for parents and caregivers to describe current symptoms and the reason for the assessment in depth. This meeting allows the psychologist to create a comprehensive battery of assessments to utilize.
Step 3: The child will complete a three-to-four-hour assessment session with the psychologist at the office.
Step 4: After the assessment the psychologist will quickly create comprehensive psychological report and will discuss the results in detail with the family and child, if the parents wish. The psychologist will review treatment recommendations and will communicate directly with the school or other providers if the family wishes.