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What is a Psychoeducational Assessment?

Psychoeducational assessments are useful when children struggle with learning or behavior, or when their social or emotional skills are less developed than expected.

Psychoeducational Assessment?

Psychoeducational assessments are useful when children struggle with learning or behavior, or when their social or emotional skills are less developed than expected. These challenges can be symptoms of hidden problems with attention or organization. They can also reflect difficulties with academic skills, like reading and math. Left unidentified, problems can spiral into secondary issues, including low self-esteem, school refusal and anger.

At Shift Cognitive Therapy + Assessment we believe that truly useful psychological assessments answer two questions: ‘Why are these problems occurring?’ and ‘What do we do about it?’

Early assessment and intervention give you and your child the tools necessary to enhance strengths and address of limitations before problems really take root. We conduct a comprehensive psychological and educational assessment of children between the ages of 5 and 19. We also provide assessments for teens going on to post-secondary education.

We know what contributes to academic success.

At Shift, our team of clinicians work with you to identify problem issues and develop interventions to guide your child forward. Our reports are meaningful and easy to understand and our assessment services are available 7 days per week because we know your family’s time is important. We even have a team of professionals that will work with you after the assessment to help implement the recommendations at home or in the school.

What Should I Expect in a Psychoeducational Assessment?

Psychoeducational assessments are typically conducted over 3 visits. The first is a meeting with the parents to discuss the issues and concerns. We will investigate the history of the problem and begin generating hypotheses about what might be causing it. We will discuss the areas to be evaluated in the assessment and give you questionnaires to complete at home.

The second step is the assessment of the child, which we usually book for a different day. The assessment might examine cognitive, memory, perceptual, motor and organizational skills, self-esteem and other areas that we think are appropriate. We will often also conduct a detailed examination of reading, writing and math development. Most children enjoy the experience because they are involved in a one-to-one situation, doing activities that are quite game-like. We examine all of the results after the testing is complete and produce a comprehensive report that explains our findings.

The final step is a second meeting with the parents (and possibly also with the child) to discuss the assessment results and review our recommendations. In most cases, we are able to complete the report within three weeks of the testing.

Colleges and universities can make accommodations for students with special learning needs, but only when they have a current psychoeducational assessment describing the specific requirements. Our team works to create strategies and accommodations to help post-secondary students succeed in their chosen programs.

Click here to learn more about our Psychoeducational Assessments