A Word About Our Diagnostic Evaluations
To evaluate various psychological difficulties, including possible learning
disabilities and adjustment problems, our agency makes use of psychological
test data, in addition to history and interview. On the basis of the
results, we recommend whether or not therapy is indicated. If therapy
should be indicated we use the data to recommend whether and when the
therapy should be structured (the client works with formal tasks presented
by the therapists), unstructured (the client determines what is done
in the sessions and what is talked about), or some combination of the
two approaches. If our data indicate that evaluations by other specialties
(e.g., psychiatry; psychopharmacology; neurology) are needed to diagnose
the presenting problem, we help arrange for these evaluations and share
our findings with them.
Areas of Psychological Functioning Evaluated
Our evaluations follow the view, based upon 30 years of research and
clinical experience, that how a person thinks is as important as what
a person thinks. In addition, we believe that experiences in the first
four years of a child's development play a central role in her/his academic,
intellectual, cognitive and personality development. Four broad areas
are evaluated:
Tests of cognitive functioning provide data about the unique ways a
person gathers information, focuses attention on what is relevant to
the task at hand, compares present and past information, and conceptually
organizes information.
Tests of intelligence, in addition to providing IQ scores, intelligence
tests help determine whether and under what circumstances the person's
intelligence is operating efficiently or is being compromised, either
because the person uses faulty ways of gathering information (cognitive
functions), or the person's intellectual activity is preoccupied with
personal problems, or both.
Personality Tests provide measures of the private thoughts, meanings,
fantasies and emotions, conscious and unconscious, that represent a
person's past experiences, on the one hand, and, on the other, what
a person introduces into and expects from current situations. These
meanings/fantasies/emotions are assessed at three levels:
(1) embodied meanings or body image: with one procedure, the person
assumes body postures, performs simple movements, and describes what
the various body experiences bring to mind. With another procedure,
the person examines various objects with touch perception only, and
describes what the tactile experiences bring to mind;
(2) fantasy: the child examines ink blots and describes what they could
be, and also looks at pictures and constructs a story about what is
going on;
(3) language: the child verbally completes sentences, a part of which
the examiner speaks, and also discusses questions raised by the examiner
in an interview.
Tests of academic abilities provide data about learning skills (e.g.,
reading comprehension, math, spelling etc.) expected for a person's
age and grade.
Methodology Cognitive
Tools Graph Cognitive Tools Table