Evaluation
Getting a comprehensive evaluation is often the first step for many families toward understanding and addressing their child or teen’s challenges and needs. An evaluation will provide a thorough understanding of how your child’s brain works, including potential diagnoses that will help identify next steps for getting effective supports at home and school.
You may be looking for an evaluation for a specific type of situation, or perhaps your child or teen is experiencing a range of challenges. From targeted evaluations to re-evaluations and older teen evaluations, our services can be tailored to meet any level of complexity. Challenges can also show up individually or in combination. We help you to determine where you are with your specific situation.
Diagnostically, we specialize in:
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) evaluations
- Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) evaluations
- Dyslexia evaluations
- Learning Disability evaluations (e.g., Dyslexia, Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia)
- Gifted and twice-exceptional evaluations
- Social-emotional evaluations, including assessment of anxiety, depression, and behavior
- Comprehensive evaluations assessing multiple, interacting diagnostic areas
How Comprehensive Evaluations Work
We recognize that parents have many options when it comes to evaluations for their child. Evaluations may be offered by schools, hospitals, or a variety of health practitioners, and can range in depth, quality, and cost. At Wolff Child Psychology, we believe in providing comprehensive psychoeducational and neuropsychological evaluations. This helps us get a complete picture of a child’s situation and thus provide the best possible guidance and recommendations for care and support. During an evaluation, we gather broad and in-depth information from multiple sources, including direct testing with your child or teen, as well as interviewing and collecting data from parents, teachers, and other professionals in your child’s life.
Supporting and Advocating for your Child After a Comprehensive Evaluation
With an evaluation report that highlights a child’s strengths and challenges, including specific diagnoses and recommendations, families can access a range of support services and accommodations. Our team collaborates closely with you and your child’s school to ensure that the evaluation results are used effectively to support your child’s educational and social-emotional development. Wolff Child Psychology’s clear and comprehensive reports, along with our direct participation and advocacy in your child’s school meetings, can make a huge difference. Parents have often told us that our educational advocacy makes them feel far more comfortable and validated in the educational environment. Our evaluation results are tailored to your child’s specific needs, ensuring they receive the accommodations and interventions necessary for success in school. Additionally, our evaluations provide the documentation needed to access other services and supports, such as therapy, counseling, and community resources.
We understand that a diagnosis is just the beginning of your journey. Beyond the initial diagnosis, our team remains committed to supporting your family every step of the way.
Next Steps: Schedule a Comprehensive Evaluation
If you’re ready to schedule an evaluation with one of our comprehensive evaluation specialists, here is what you can expect:
If you schedule an evaluation for your child, you will know the exact dates of testing, who your evaluator is, and the evaluation fee.
Testing typically occurs over one school-length day or two half-days. Full-day evaluations include an extended break for lunch. For children 6 years and older, we do not expect parents to stay onsite (though you are welcome to), as the in-person testing sessions focus exclusively on your child. If your child is under 6 years of age, please do plan to stay onsite. Your child and the psychologist will work collaboratively throughout the evaluation sessions to complete a range of formal and informal tests, while building in time for adequate breaks and rapport-building.
After your child’s testing sessions, we take about 2-3 weeks to gather information from multiple sources, including in-depth interviews with you, your child’s teacher(s), and other professionals (e.g., tutors, occupational and speech/language therapists, pediatricians, etc.). We also request you and your child’s teacher complete clinical questionnaires online.
Once we have collected all of our data, we will meet with you (typically without your child) to review the results, including any diagnoses we ruled in or out, notable strengths or weaknesses across developmental areas, and our educational and treatment recommendations.
Within 2-3 weeks of the feedback session, we will create a comprehensive written report detailing all of the relevant background information, data collected during the evaluation, our diagnostic and clinical conclusions, and our educational and treatment recommendations.
Given how critical it is for a child’s educational plan to fit their needs, we include our active participation in a follow-up school meeting as part of the evaluation. Meetings can range in format, including IEP/504 Plan eligibility and development, private school accommodation planning, and/or informational sessions with your child’s educational team. Our goal is to support the school in understanding your child’s psychoeducational strengths and challenges, and to contribute toward the development of an effective educational plan.
If we recommend specific types of treatment and intervention, we will provide referrals for those services (and happily connect with the new providers about your child’s case). If appropriate, we may offer options for follow-up psychotherapy and coaching services at Wolff Child Psychology.