Should My Child Have A Psychoeducational Evaluation?

Is homework a battle? Is academic progress inconsistent across subjects? Are some of your child’s standardized test scores low in particular areas or across subjects? Below are some additional questions to ask yourself in determining whether to pursue a psychoeducational evaluation for your child.

• Child does not seem to be benefitting from regular classroom instruction, even with some individualized attention
• Child struggles to retain information just presented or seems to retain information one day and forget it the next
• Each day’s lessons need to be re-taught to complete homework
• A problem that was observed in lower grades but was manageable has become more of an issue as the work/pace gets harder
• Child is exhibiting noteworthy emotional difficulties, such as sadness, withdrawal, anxiety, low self-confidence, poor self-esteem, etc.

 A comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation, speech-language evaluation, and/or occupational therapy evaluation can help determine the nature and the extent of many learning, behavioral, or social-emotional difficulties students may be experiencing. The results can help guide and inform instructional, behavioral, and therapeutic strategies used to ease the struggle that these differences may be causing, both at school and at home.

A psychoeducational assessment can help:

• Make a diagnosis
• Understand individual learning profiles, such as a student’s strengths and weaknesses
• Determine effective instructions and programs
• Develop strategies (accommodations or modifications) for school and home

A psychoeducational assessment will include a comprehensive profile of cognitive, academic, behavioral, and social-emotional functioning. And it also contains observations and parent/teacher reports.

In additional to the psychoeducational assessment, a speech-language evaluation may be helpful to identifying delays or impairments of speech production. A speech- language evaluation can determine the presence of pragmatic (social communication) language weaknesses that impact a child’s life both in and out of the school setting. While not all-inclusive, a speech-language evaluation may be warranted if a child demonstrates any of the following: 

• Speech that is difficult to understand
• The use of immature and/or erroneous grammar and sentence structure
• Difficulty retelling stories or events
• The use of immature vocabulary
• Difficulty following/recalling spoken instructions/stories
• Has trouble expressing ideas and opinions
• Increased academic difficulty with language-loaded subjects
• Difficulty establishing and/or maintaining
  friendships

Likewise, an occupational evaluation can include assessment of fine-motor, gross-motor, visual-perceptual and visual-motor integration, handwriting, self-care, and sensory-processing skills. Standardized assessments, clinical observations, and often non-standardized measures are completed to determine strengths and weaknesses affecting a child’s performance at school, home, and play.

The team at the Diagnostic Center at Currey Ingram Academy has a variety of experience in clinical and school psychology, child development, and speech-language and occupational therapy and intervention. The team conducts comprehensive assessments that go beyond simply reporting test scores. The goal is to get to know each individual as thoroughly as possible to produce a report that fully explores the individual’s learning, behavioral, and social-emotional challenges and strengths. This helps point a clear path toward effective strategic interventions for each unique client.