School can be very frustrating for kids with learning issues. Often they feel out of sync with their classmates and frustrated that the level of effort they put into their schoolwork is not matched by the feedback they receive. Our neuropsychological evaluations give these children a road map to how they learn. Through the assessment process we identify students' cognitive strengths and weaknesses and explain how these underlie academic struggles. Typically, students and their parents are relieved to find out that what seems difficult for them genuinely is more difficult for them than it is for others, and we offer an educational specialist to make it happen.
Initial Meeting
Parents first come in for a meeting. In this initial meeting we try to understand your questions about your child and your goals for the evaluation.
Assessment
Students then come for three or four individual assessment sessions. The total assessment time is between 8 and 10 hours. The length of these sessions varies depending on how much energy students have and how long they can focus. We do not schedule these meetings during afterschool hours because students are usually too tired.
During this time we may also visit students' schools for classroom evaluations. We also talk with teachers, therapists, and pediatricians to get a complete picture.
Feedback Sessions
After meeting with students, we analyze patterns in their performance. We write a report that summarizes strengths, pinpoints underlying problems, and makes recommendations about ways to remediate skill deficits and to accommodate these problems in formal testing settings. We meet with parents at a feedback meeting where we provide and discuss the report and give recommendations. Most importantly our educational specialist will be present to offer advocacy to make sure the child has the opportunity to receive the presribed recommendations.
Advocacy
Our professional educational advocate will work with the parents and the schools to make sure the school agrees to provide the interventions remediations prescribed in the report. They will attend the child's IEP meeting along with the parents.
