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You should strongly consider comprehensive psychoeducational testing if your child has failed or is at risk of failing a grade or subject, struggles to maintain focus on academic tasks, routinely encounters learning difficulties, is unable to complete assignments, or makes errors that appear to be careless or haphazard. Additionally, behavioral problems in school, including school avoidance or refusal, cutting class, frequent suspensions, sleeping in class, and disruptive or defiant classroom behavior can often stem from learning difficulties. It is important to keep in mind that psychoeducational assessment is also quite beneficial for intellectually gifted children, who may not be properly challenged in the classroom and, therefore, become easily distracted and may resort to disruptive behavior.

 

A comprehensive psychoeducational assessment will include psychological testing that evaluates your child’s cognitive strengths and challenges in a variety of spheres, including, but not limited to, attention and concentration, verbal processing, spatial reasoning, and information encoding and retrieval (i.e. short-term and long-term memory). Once your child’s cognitive abilities have been thoroughly evaluated, extensive academic testing is conducted to assess a range of academic skills relative to his or her own abilities as well as in comparison to peers. Parent and teacher feedback is also obtained during this process, through a variety of academic and social-emotional checklists, to better understand your child’s difficulties and the context of the problems they experience.

 

The results of the comprehensive psychoeducational assessment will be shared with you and your child in a supportive and easily understood way. The final report will include very detailed and specific recommendations and learning strategies, tailored to your child’s individual strengths and challenges and developed to ensure optimal success in the classroom and beyond.