The purpose of a psychoeducational evaluation is to help you as a parent, along with your child’s teachers, better understand your child’s learning style, abilities, academic potential and educational needs. Typically, these evaluations include an assessment of your child’s cognitive ability, as well as a detailed evaluation of where they are functioning academically. A full scale assessment will include an evaluation of work samples, as well as of your child’s social, academic, developmental, and family history. You will be asked to complete behavioral questionnaires, as will your child’s teachers. The evaluation will include a clinical interview of your child, and possibly an evaluation of other factors impacting learning or academic performance, such as learning style, memory, grapho-motor ability, etc.
PHA has a reputation in the community for providing comprehensive, quality psychoeducational evaluations. Some school districts do require that such evaluations be completed by a certified school psychologist, or under the supervision of a certified school psychologist. One of our clinicians, Dr. Tegan Blackbird, is a certified school psychologist, who is well known for the quality of his evaluations. If he is not available for an evaluation of your child, he can be available for the supervision of an evaluation by one of our other clinicians, if your school requires that. Please discuss this with the clinician who is working with you.
Please understand that while such testing can be extremely valuable and worthwhile, it will not be covered by your health insurance plan. Health insurance companies do not consider psychoeducational testing a medical service. Instead, they look at it as falling under the jurisdiction of education, and as such being the responsibility of either the child’s parents or sometimes the school district.
Psychoeducational evaluations take a great deal of time and energy and skill. Before the onset of an evaluation the clinician you are working with will discuss with you the scope of the evaluation that you are requesting, and will tailor the testing done to meet your child’s needs. We will be able to give you a reasonably accurate estimate of the amount of time that will be involved in the evaluation (PHA bills for evaluations strictly on the basis of the amount of time involved in completing the evaluation and report. This includes the time involved in test administration, scoring, interpreting, synthesizing and generation of a report). Before an evaluation is begun, it is important to clarify that you understand that you will be responsible in full for the cost of this testing/evaluation, and agree to remit payment promptly at the time that services are rendered.
Please also understand that while your child’s evaluation will include recommendations to you as a parent, and to your child’s school as educators, the school is not bound by the recommendations made. Psychological Health Affiliates will be available to you as a resource, and will make every attempt to communicate the results to the school in a collaborative, responsible and professional manner.