Assessments
Why Seek an Assessment?
An assessment can shed light on your strengths and difficulties. It can help determine if there are one or multiple mental health conditions impacting your functioning. It can also help determine the functional impact of those conditions. The results, detailed in a thorough report, help inform specific recommendations, including possible treatment (e.g., therapy, medication) and supports (e.g., work, school accommodations, funding applications). The report can be shared by you with relevant professionals (e.g., family physician, therapist, academic institution, and/or employer).
There are different types of assessment (described below), depending on your needs and areas of concerns:
Psychodiagnostic
Psychoeducational
Neuropsychological
What is the Focus of a Psychodiagnostic Assessment?
Psychodiagnostic assessments examine emotional and social mental health concerns, including possible anxiety disorders (generalized, social, health, panic, etc.), mood disorders (depression, bipolar), trauma and stress related disorders (PTSD, adjustment), obsessive-compulsive-related disorders (OCD, trichotillomania, excoriation, etc), depersonalization/derealization, and personality disorders (borderline, avoidance, obsessive-compulsive, etc.).
Often symptoms overlap and people can have many different, related conditions that occur together. An assessment can help determine whether your concerns fit with a particular mental health diagnosis or multiple diagnoses. This information can be helpful for determining what types of therapy may be better fits for you, whether medication may be warranted, and whether accommodations in work and/or school are necessary.
How Long do Psychodiagnostic Assessments Take and What are the Costs?
Depending on the complexity of your concerns, assessments typically range between 7-12 hours. The assessment includes 2-4 hours of interviewing, 4-7 hours of scoring and interpretation of questionnaires and report writing, and 1 hour of feedback.
These assessments can be completed entirely virtually.
Note: More time may be required if there is a lengthy history of difficulties with documentation that needs to be reviewed.
What is the Focus of a Psychoeducational Assessment?
Psychoeducational assessments investigate learning skills, cognitive abilities, memory, and executive functioning, with the intention of ruling in or out difficulties understanding and problem solving, reading, writing, or math learning disorders, memory deficits, processing speed challenges, and/or ADHD. These assessments also tend to include evaluation of a limited range of possible emotional functioning challenges (e.g., mood, anxiety) that are most likely to co-occur with learning difficulties and/or ADHD.
How Long do Psychoeducational Assessments Take and What are the Costs?
Psychoeducational assessments typically range between 15-17 hours. The assessment includes 2-4 hours of interviewing, 6 hours of cognitive, memory, and academic testing, 6-8 hours of scoring and interpretation of questionnaires, document review, and report writing, and 1 hour of feedback.
Note: More time may be required if there is a lengthy history of difficulties with documentation that needs to be reviewed.
Some clinicians, including myself, are able to expand the scope of a psychoeducational assessment to include a broader range of possible emotional functioning concerns (e.g., trauma, OCD, etc.). However, this is likely to require additional interviewing, questionnaires, and report writing; as such, the costs are likely to increase relative to the number of concerns you wish to have investigated.
Please note: As the gold standard approach for learning disorder and ADHD psychoeducational assessments requires a full-day of in-person testing, I only provide ADHD and learning disorder assessments (but not ASD assessments) at a clinic in the Waterloo region. I am happy to assist you in scheduling that type of assessment with me
Neuropsychological Assessments
These assessment are often helpful for individuals with traumatic brain injuries or other health conditions that may impact neurocognitive functioning. They are time intensive and include in-person testing. They require specialized training in neuropsychology. I do not complete these assessments.
Assessments are
Targeted & Broad
When seeking an assessment, you likely have some ideas about what is most impacting your functioning and you may have some certain diagnostic conditions in mind. An assessment with me will be both targeted in terms of assessing the concerns you suspect and broad in terms of considering an array of overlapping conditions. I am thorough to ensure relevant details are not overlooked and create well informed recommendations for your next steps moving forward.
Detailed
& Specific
An assessment includes a thorough investigation of your functioning through interview, objective questionnaires, and document review (of past assessments or relevant medical reports). My approach is adaptive to be specific to your concerns. I then write a detailed report, outlining your strengths and areas of concerns, including any diagnosis that is appropriate.
Solution Focused
Whether the assessment results indicate you have many, one, or no diagnoses, the report will include a range of recommendations about what is likely to best help address the concerns you have been experiencing. Recommendations often include suggestions for specific forms of therapy, pharmacological intervention with your family doc or a psychiatrist, and/or accommodations at work/school.