COMPREHENSIVE PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL EVALUATIONS
Evaluations for students K-12
Evaluations offer students, families, and educators information to collaborate successfully. They can aid in the identification of learning disabilities, such as ADHD or dyslexia. They provide insight cognitive processes, personality strengths, attention, impulse control, perception, learning, memory, and executive functioning and offer concrete strategies for students, families, and educators.
Depending on the students' needs and caregiver's consent, this process may include steps such as:
- Interviewing family and child for developmental background and self-reports
- Feedback from the child's school, classroom observations if feasible.
- Collaborating with the child's schools to determine appropriate reasonable sustainable supportive practices.
- Recommendations for supportive teaching and learning.
- Cognitive and educational evaluations of students using validated assessment tools
- Comprehensive summative report with feedback to caregivers.
- Feedback to student in age appropriate language.
- Feedback to school about application of recommendations and accommodations.
- Clinical evaluations of children & adolescent socioemotional development
Evaluations provide a map to guide interventions and recommendations that to set students up for success, and for productive collaboration and skill-building. Students with limited financial means -- many of them students of color -- are often marginalized from opportunities to engage in their own productive and student-centered conversations because they are unable to afford an evaluation that offer specific and detailed recommendations. To address this inequity, I have a special interest in developing relationships with schools and organizations who are willing to subsidize their students in need. If you are a school or organization who subsidizes student support, I would be open to partnering with you.
FAQ While the social norms of conformity are falling out of favor, the persistence of the concept of what is “normal” and “acceptable” is nevertheless a conflicting reality in education, often creating barriers by stigmatizing students who stand out in the way they learn. Psychoeducational evaluations offer insight and provide tools for individuals, families and schools to help students navigate their learning environments in ways that foster their personal strengths. What is a psychoeducational evaluation? An evaluation assesses broad areas of cognitive and academic functioning to understand how an individual’s brain approaches learning and problem-solving. Schools, educators, students and families can use the assessments to formulate interventions and recommendations that help students self-advocate and succeed. Psychoeducational tests are standardized, meaning that they are given and scored in the same manner to all individuals within an individual’s peer age group. In this way, an evaluator can determine whether one’s performance on any given task represents a relative strength or weakness in the context of a person’s individual profile, as well as within the context of their learning environment. Psychoeductational tests consider areas including cognitive functioning, executive functions (such as planning, abstraction, organization), attention, memory, language, perception, sensorimotor functions, and socioemotional states, and especially addresses the ways in which those areas of functioning interact.
A complete evaluation can take between two and eight hours to complete, depending on the complexity of the issues to be addressed by the evaluation. Generally, two or more sessions in order to illicit optimal performance. Students shouldn’t worry about “passing” a test. Instead, participating in the testing in and of itself provides useful insight into how a person learns best. Testing is most helpful when a student arrives rested and motivated to engage to the best of their ability. Psychoeducational evaluations involve getting information from the student, the family, schools, an other important influences in a child's life. Students will be guided through activities, screeners and assessments. Together, this helps provide both a micro and macro view into factors may be enhancing or detracting from a student's learning potential. What happens after the evaluation? The results of the evaluation will be summarized in a report and will serve as the basis for recommendations for ways to support your child’s learning, including those associated with standardized testing, specific skill-building, suggestions for resources or consultations with other professionals. These can also be important directions to help you advocate for services in both public and private schools. Caregivers and the student will meet with the evaluator to interpret and apply the information in the report. It is important to stress that deciding who to share the report with is solely at your discretion unless an exchange of information has been explicitly agreed upon by informed consent. As a general practice, it is often recommended that you share the results of the evaluation with those who are partnering with you to support your child, but that decision is up to you. |
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