Why Should I Get An Evaluation For My Child?

How Can A Psychological Evaluation Or Psychoeducational Evaluation Help My Child?

Is your child struggling academically or behaviorally in school? Has your child received tutoring or specialized education and they still have a hard time learning? Do emotional or social challenges get in the way of your child developing friendships and enjoying childhood?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, psychological testing could give you a clear understanding of your child’s strengths and identify opportunities for intervention. While psychological and psychoeducational evaluations often lead to a diagnosis, the most important aspect is getting a game plan with recommendations and referrals for services designed to help each child succeed.

What Type of Services Are Often Suggested?

There are a variety of services available to support children and parents depending on the present concerns. As part of the recommendations I make when evaluating a child, I often incorporate a variety of the services below.

Individual and Family Therapy –

The goals of therapy depend on the child’s needs. Common reasons I suggest therapy include managing emotions, difficulty with relationships, feelings of low self-esteem, and/or learning communication skills such as assertiveness. Family therapy can be helpful when parents would benefit from learning tools to support their child’s needs and/or to improve communication in the home.

Art and Equine Therapy –

Some children may respond better to addressing their personal challenges in creative ways such as art therapy or equine therapy. Typically these sessions occur outdoors and involve learning at the moment which can be great for children who are more hesitant to open up and share about personal matters.

Art and/or horses offer a unique way to help children let their guard down. Also, for children with various emotional and physical limitations, therapeutic horseback riding can be tremendously healing and enhance self-esteem while also improving balance, strengthening the core, developing hand-eye coordination, and helping with sensory integration.

Speech and Language Therapy –

Speech and language therapy can help when there are language delays, however, this service is also beneficial for children with various Communication Disorders such as Stuttering, Language Disorder, Speech Sound Disorder, Social Pragmatic Communication Disorder, or Autism Spectrum Disorder. While speech and language therapists often help children with articulation difficulties, they can also focus on communication skills, understanding social cues to self-regulate the conversation, and the ability to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Occupational Therapy –

Occupational therapists can help children improve their grasp, develop good handwriting, and help with their daily activities. For children with ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder, the focus may be on sensory integration or developing tools for self-regulation.

Specialized Tutoring –

While many adults offer tutoring services, to work with children with learning differences, they must have specialized training to know how to instruct these children. In addition, they utilize evidence-based programs and methods for teaching children with various learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, nonverbal learning disorders, among others.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) –

This is an approach often suggested when working with children who present with various behavioral and/or emotional problems in-home and/or school. The goals of ABA are tailored to each child and family but often aim to decrease problem behaviors, improve language and communication skills, provide children with self-monitoring and self-regulation techniques to reduce challenging or interfering behaviors, or focus on improving adaptive functioning and self-care activities. The ABA therapists often work in the home with the paren