Psychological AssessmentsDr. O'Connor, a Toronto psychologist, offers Psychological Assessments for children, adolescents and young adults.
An child assessment increases understanding of child problems and how to help. A child or adolescent assessment can enhance understanding of the child problems that worry you. Get "beneath the surface" and learn more about a child. What are his strengths and particular talents? What are his needs and how can you help? Learn more about a child. Does the child have a learning disability? Is she anxious, upset or feeling depressed and unsure of herself? Does she exhibit attention or behavior problems? How serious are these concerns? Do they require the support of a professional? Find out how a child is coping with specific challenges and stressors such as divorce or parental addiction? Is your child feeling stressed? Does he/she lack self-esteem or confidence? These are some of the questions a child assessment can answer. A Psychological Assessment also leads to recommendations including parenting and teaching strategies or suggestions for further support or resources to help you, help a child. How Does It Work? The psychologist who conducts an assessment with a child relies on information from a variety of sources. This includes background information gathered from the child's parents, teachers or other significant adults, as well as information contained in school reports, other records or obtained during previous assessments. Psychologists may also use questionnaires, behavior rating scales and other informal measures to learn more about your child. The psychologist also relies on standardized assessment measures and compares your child to children of the same age across a range of behaviors and skills. Standardized measures include intelligence and cognitive tests, academic tests and tests to measure your child's processing ability and learning and memory skills. The assessment takes several hours to complete and usually involves more than one session. In most cases the psychologist tailors the assessment to your child's specific needs and uses assessment tools and approaches that address the concerns that are at issue with your child. How Can A Psychological Assessment Help? An adolescent or child assessment sharpens the focus or "opens a window" on a child's strengths and specific needs. You will have a clearer picture of how your child is doing. You will also have a clearer understanding of the factors that are involved in the child problems that concern you, and how to address them. In addition, the adolescent or child assessment provides recommendations to help you, help your children. Recommendations address areas of specific need such as attention and learning problems, or emotional concerns including depressive symptoms and anxiety or behavior and social problems. You will learn how a child compares to children of the same age in specific areas of child development. Following the assessment, the psychologist may refer you to resources in the community or relevant books and other resources to address the child's needs. If applicable, the psychologist will provide recommendations to help the child cope with specific problems and concerns like divorce, parental addiction, the loss of a parent or stress, and/or behavior and school problems. Dr. O'Connor's assessments integrate a 4-step system for "getting to the root" of child problems and finding practical, effective solutions to solve them. These steps include: Step 1: Focusing On and Defining the Problem The comprehensiveness, detail and depth of this 4-step process depends on the concerns addressed.
Dr. O'Connor's Psychological Assessments increase understanding of child problems and how to help. Use this service to:
To learn more about how a child assessment can help,
click here. Dr. O'Connor's assessments increase understanding of child problems and how to help. Psychological assessments are recommended when child problems are difficult to manage and show little improvement. To learn more about Dr. O'Connor's Toronto Based Assessment services for children, adolescents and young adults,
click here, Copyright 2011 (c) Dianne S. O'Connor, Ed.D.All Rights Reserved. Dr. O'Connor runs her practice, Assessment Based Solutions in Toronto (Yonge & St.Clair.) She can be reached at 416-592-0838. You can also contact Dr. O'Connor by
email. |
