Health and Psychology

A good friend and colleague called.  He does the same type of complex testing I do and we have similar laments about what others, even in our profession, know about what we do.   "Someone just asked me what tests I give to get people a private room as an accommodation. I said I evaluate people. I don't just administer tests."

I understand completely.  I get the same types of calls.  So the first step in the process of an evaluation of anything is to talk to someone.  But often that's not where other people start.  They start with "what do you charge to administer a (fill in test name)."  Occasionally another professional will ask if I can administer a test for them, like an IQ or personality test, or a test to rule out ADHD.  Sure.  Then they follow it up with a question that tells me they need much more than that, like supervision.  Or this conversation "My client needs an evaluation for adult ADD."  Okay.  when diud the symptoms of ADD start, I ask.  "Right after his head on car accident."  No.  You need a lot more than an evaluation for ADD.  And I go into a 30-50 minute conversation about brain injuries and head trauma and the distinction between a frontal lobe disorder or executive dysfunction and ADD.   

When I start an evaluation of someone, it starts over the phone.  "What is it about an evaluation that you think will help you?"  That starts to tell me if I'm even the right professional for them to be talking to.  Lay people don't often know the difference between a neurologist and a neuropsychologist, or between a psychologist and a psychiatrist.   When looking at disabilites and the complexity in documenting the need for accommodations for school or work, I start by looking at and talking with people.  An evaluation starts with what happened and what they need now. What's important to them and why do they need this now.   It deals with what happens after the evaluation is over. The "Now what?" component.

I evaluated someone that had a significant reading disorder.  They had always worked around it and had been successful.  But now, they wanted to go back to school and didn't even know if that was possible.  So documenting the need for accommodations meant taking a look at the reading disorder in detail.  It meant documenting all the functional limitations of it.  It also meant looking at all the available accommodation strategies that can be used to help.  It was a painstaking trial and error process that involved not only a 10 hour day of testing, but use of text-to-speech, speech-to-text, the impact of time of day, lighting, noise level, distraction, food, beverage, frequent and less frequent breaks, and what happened to test scores designed to be evaluated over different conditions.  It wasn't just testing.  It was understanding who the person was, what they might need, and how getting things might benefit them.  It also shows the person what's possible for their lives, not just for a specific examination.  

This kind of evaluation transforms people's lives.  They think about things differently.  It enables them to do things.  It changes them from "I can't do (fill in the blank)" to "I can do it if I accommodate by (fill in the blank)."  In some cases, like with some medical conditions or head injury, it might be that someone needs to come to terms with their injury or illness.  But even then, it's an evaluation of a person.  I remember my brother told me he just couldn't find food to eat because he's diabetic.  So we went shopping and he and I cooked.  It was about four hours of understanding food, cooking, blood sugar, and diabetes.  There's not a psychological test for that.  There's a human interaction to help someone understand.  We do that all the time in evaluating people.  And we write reports to explain who people are and what they need.

If you are interested in an evaluation, not just having tests administered, we do that.   Feel free to contact us.