Clinical Services
Psychodiagnostic Assessment and Testing
A good assessment answers questions about a student's ability, behavior, mood, academic potential, and overall functioning. Testing provides a thoughtful analysis of a child’s strengths and weaknesses along with a detailed intervention plan to build on noted strengths while improving on identified weaknesses.
Questions and Answers
Someone has suggested that your child needs testing, perhaps to help with educational planning, to get to the root of some problem or delay, or to determine exactly what kind of intervention would be most helpful at this time…or all of the above. Contacting professionals, sorting through options, and making a decision can be a complicated and confusing process.
Here are some common questions and answers that you may find helpful along your journey:
What is the Purpose of Testing?
The purpose of testing is to answer a set of questions about a student's functioning. During the intake session, testing questions are discussed and clarified. This may include such questions as: Why does my child do so poorly on tests? Does my child qualify for classroom accommodations? Why has my child’s grades suddenly dropped for no apparent reason? Why is my child so good at video games and so poor at schoolwork? My child seems more withdrawn than usual—should I be worried? Why does homework take so much longer than expected? What can we do to help our child be more successful?
Testing batteries range from $5500 and up. This fee includes the intake session, five or six testing sessions, the feedback session(s), and a detailed written analysis. Half of the testing fee is due at the intake; the balance is due at the feedback session.
How Much Does it Cost?
The testing process can usually be completed in about a month, beginning with the intake session and ending with the feedback session. Certain times of the year are very busy, such as vacation periods, so schedule early if you wish to get testing during those times!
How Long Does the Whole Process Take?
Some insurance companies do pay for testing. Although we do not bill insurance companies directly for services, we will provide you with a bill at the feedback session that details the testing sessions, procedure codes, and any appropriate diagnostic codes that you can then submit to the insurance company directly for reimbursement.
Will Insurance Pay?
Testing is time consuming. For every hour of face-to-face time, many additional hours are required for scoring, interpretation, and write-up. We also take a team approach with "two minds on every case" which provides the best analysis possible for each student. In fact, comprehensive batteries often take an average of 50 clinical hours or more to complete.
Why is it so Expensive?
What Should I Expect from Testing?
You should expect to get a comprehensive picture of your child’s functioning across multiple domains (which may include cognitive/ information processing, academic, learning skills, attention/executive functioning, developmental level, and social/emotional functioning), a detailed written report, understandable feedback, and, most importantly, a set of clearly stated recommendations for specific actions you can take.
Developmental Diagnostic Assessment
Developmental Diagnostic Assessments specifically answer questions related to an individual’s cognitive and social-emotional development. This may include questions regarding friendship, flexibility, and behavioral regulation. This assessment is comprehensive and includes all areas of the Psychodiagnostic Assessment with additional sessions focused on a variety of developmental delays and diagnoses, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Dr. Deane, who specialized in diagnosing and treating ASD during her training at UCLA’s Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART), is certified to administer the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2), the gold standard for diagnosing ASD.
When emotional issues get in the way of an individual’s or a family’s happiness or success, counseling services are available. A short-term psychotherapeutic approach is typically used to help families with such issues as anger, depression, anxiety, sibling conflict, illness, or divorce.
Individual and Family Psychotherapy
Developmental psychotherapy targets social-emotional delays, such as those commonly found in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A systematic and concrete approach is used to help children develop a cognitive understanding of their actions as well as the behaviors of others. By developing social awareness, children are able to establish a deeper understanding of interpersonal interactions and thus participate more successfully. Parents are also involved in this type of therapy so that they may understand and further facilitate skill development outside of sessions.
Developmental Psychotherapy
Parenting the child or teen with attention and/or learning delays can be a roller-coaster ride that can travel from exciting and thrilling to frustrating and exhausting. Parent education and support classes, provided in both individual and group formats, allow parents a safe environment to share their parenting experiences with others and to learn research-based strategies designed to improve the quality of parent-child interactions.