THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION:
The purpose of a psychological evaluation is to assess the emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and intellectual difficulties a person may encounter. It allows individuals to know themselves better, explore their personality, and understand areas of growth and development. An evaluation answers specific questions in terms of what accommodations are needed to remediate the most problematic areas. It is a thorough investigation of a person, with a deep appreciation for the entire functioning of the person, both on a cognitive/intellectual and emotional standpoint. It is composed of clinical interviews and standardized psychological tests whose objective is to target areas of strength and weakness in order to put in place an adapted treatment and/or educational plan.
The goal of a psychological evaluation for a child is designed to explore how he learns, stores and encodes information, memorizes, focuses and maintains attention, what strategies he implements, what his strengths and weaknesses are, how he handles stress, and whether emotional factors impede the capacity to learn. An evaluation can confirm a diagnosis, clarify emotional functioning, and assess the cognitive/intellectual capacity with its strengths and weaknesses. The evaluation results allow for specific recommendations to be implemented by the child’s educational, professional, and treatment team.
The request for an evaluation comes primarily from parents, often at the demand of the school. The main questions typically revolve around the following:
1. Hyperactivity
2. Attention and concentration
3. Behavioral issues (agitation, aggression, inhibition, isolation, social withdrawal)
4. Communication issues
5. Academic and/or relational difficulties (parents, peers, teachers)
6. Anxiety or stress (separation anxiety, performance anxiety)
7. Learning disorders (dyslexia, etc.…)
8. Giftedness or intellectual deficit
9. Poor sense of self that manifests through various symptoms (tics, enuresis, sleep disorders…)
The purpose of the psychological evaluation is to understand the person as a whole (affective/emotional sphere, cognitive and intellectual sphere), to gain clarity on the functioning of a child or young adult, rule in/out a diagnosis so that the person can benefit from the most appropriate accommodations.
A psychological evaluation is a process that includes the following:
1. An initial consultation of approximately one hour, which aims to better understand the presenting concerns (most often from parents) that led to the request for testing. During this meeting, I seek to determine the precise nature of the request and gather historical and background information (phase of inquiry). In doing so, I expand the scope of the psychological evaluation beyond the simple calculation of scores to encompass the broader context and specific historical background of the child (or the adolescent), as well as the different environments that might be problematic (school, home, etc.).
2. The administration of specific tests. The psychological evaluation is an assessment of the psychological functioning of the child as it relates to both his intellectual and affective spheres at a specific developmental stage. The psychological evaluation is broken down into two distinct but complementary parts: a. The cognitive-intellectual tests assess the cognitive and academic functioning of the child and b. The projective and/or personality tests look more specifically at the emotional and behavioral functioning of the child. Emotional interference can negatively affect attention/concentration and impede academic progress.
3. The analysis and interpretation of results. Once the battery of psychological tests has been administered (approximately 7-8 hours of face-to-face testing), I then review, score, and analyze the results of all the tests in order to provide a diagnostic interpretation. The diagnosis is an important step in the evaluation in that it brings clarity and meaning to the current struggles of the child. An evaluation can also help in determining whether advancing a grade is appropriate in the case of cognitive giftedness. In general, as indicated previously the diagnosis must further be considered as a means to understand the "why" of the child’s struggles. The impressions and recommendations constitute a roadmap to guide the family through realistic and practical steps to implement.
4) The feedback session. It is during this meeting that I explain the results and give meaning to the data collected (behavioral observation of the child, collateral information, tests scores, and analysis of projective tests). A comprehensive written psychological report is given to the family during the feedback consultation. Please allow two to three weeks between the administration of tests and the feedback consultation so that an acute analysis of the evaluation can be presented.