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What are Psychological Assessments?
Psychological assessments are highly specialized and comprehensive assessments that can only be conducted by Psychologists, who receive the highest level of training in this specialized area. Psychological assessments provide an overall picture of the child’s learning profile and assists with determining areas of strengths and areas of improvement. These assessments assist with directing what services may be needed to enhance the child’s learning abilities and skills. Psychological assessments are extremely comprehensive and require a great extent of time to complete. They involve several stages including test preparation and selection, interviews with the family, administration of psychometric testing components, scoring, interpretation and analyzing the findings, writing and finalizing the report, and finally the feedback session to share results with the family.
Availability:
- In Clinic
How can a Psychologist Help my Child?
Psychologists assess the child’s academic emotional and behavioural skills. Once the testing is under way and completed a Psychologist can better understand the child’s needs and develop strategies to help assist a child reach their full potential.
Helping Children Learn
Psychoeducational Assessments
Children presenting with learning difficulties should be assessed to identify whether they have a learning disorder. The assessment provides valuable knowledge about your child’s strengths and challenges, which can then direct treatment that can help children improve and sometimes overcome their learning challenges. Early signs of a child with a learning disorder may present as difficulty mastering the alphabet, basic reading, phonics, writing, handwriting, number sense, the difference between left/right, math computations, and math word problem-solving skills. They often take longer to learn concepts and do not build on their skills and often need relearning. Naturally, frustration, inattention, disinterest, behavioural difficulties, anxiety, and dislike of studying or school manifest due to these learning or attention related challenges. Identification may help improve learning and performance and access to resources in the school or community, which can make a significant difference particularly if the resources are matched to meet the child’s strengths and weaknesses.
A psychoeducational report will provide a detailed analysis of the results of the assessment in the areas of cognition (e.g., memory, language, reasoning, processing skills), academic standing in core subjects, and developmental and socioemotional functioning. Clear, practical solutions are recommended for immediate implementation. From the report, parents, teachers, psychologists, and support workers will be able to gain a clear and comprehensive understanding of the child’s profile in order to implement strategies that best fit the child’s learning challenges, needs, and strengths.
Helping Children Learn
Gifted Assessments
A child who appears exceptionally bright, is fast to learn new concepts or ideas, is creative, innovative, shows independence for learning and actions, and displays strong memory skills may qualify as gifted.
Gifted assessments identify whether a child’s intellectual ability falls in the gifted range. A screener completed at school usually in Grade 4 (CCAT) may indicate the possibility of giftedness, but independent verification (e.g., through our services) using standardized instruments are needed for children to be eligible for special education programming.
A gifted assessment consists of several hours of testing, an interview with parents, and questionnaires completed by parents. Gifted assessments can identify a child’s intellectual ability which includes language, visual skills, memory, reasoning, processing, and other mental abilities that predict a student’s potential academic achievement. If a child is deemed to be gifted, a report of the assessment results includes recommendations for gifted programming, which usually commences in Grade 4 or 5 depending on the school board.
Helping Children Learn
Vocational Assessments
Adolescents starting in Grade 7 or older may wish to identify potential vocational or career options that fit their cognitive abilities, aptitude, and interests. A detailed interview, interest questionnaires, and cognitive testing are conducted. A report with results and recommendations of appropriate vocations and careers of interest is provided. Vocational assessments are helpful for planning high school courses and study trajectory, and career planning.
Your Pediatric Psychological
Assessment Appointment
Prior to your appointment with the Psychologist, you will have the opportunity to connect with the Psychologist who will introduce herself, answer any of your questions, and proceed with booking your child’s assessment appointment. The Psychoeducational assessment and analysis process will range between 20 – 25 hours. And may take more than one appointment to complete interviews and testing components with the family and child. Gifted assessments and Vocational assessments range between 2 – 4 hours.
Interviews and standardized testing are conducted during the assessment to determine the child’s functioning in various areas such as emotional wellbeing, behaviour and academics (math, reading and writing etc).
A thorough analysis of the findings is completed by the Psychologist to understand the child’s areas of strength and areas of improvement. A thorough comprehensive report of all the findings and recommendations is provided to assist with directing the family and child with the appropriate services and strategies necessary to assist the child reach their optimal potential.
Why Choose Developing Hands for your
Pediatric Psychological Assessments?
At Developing Hands we care about the families we service. We have a team of passionate Service Providers who desire to assist children to complete the activities that are meaningful to them, while supporting families along the way.
Developing Hands has been a leader in serving the community for over 12 years. Our Psychologist is a fully licenced and regulated practitioner and has a range of years assessing children and supporting families. We have a multidisciplinary team that is ready to service the families that are in need of additional therapy and supports that may be recommended by a Psychological Assessment.
Please Contact Us for more information about our pediatric Psychological Assessments.
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