If you are considering a psychological assessment, chances are this isn’t the first thing you’ve tried. The process of trying to figure out what is happening and what to do about it can be overwhelming.
My psychological assessments are customized based on your specific needs so that the process doesn’t end up taking more time or cost than necessary. The process is as simple as it can be. This means fast turn around of clear and concise written reports ready as soon as a week after testing concludes in many cases.
The psychological assessment process entails six concrete steps:
1. An initial evaluation meeting to gain a deeper understanding of the clients experiences and referral question(s).
2. Hypothesis formation about possible explanations/answers that can be empirically tested with a customized selection of tests.
3. Evaluation using evidence-based psychological tests.
4. Interpretative report of findings that synthesize test findings into a coherent narrative and answer to referral question(s).
5. Feedback for the client (and/or parents) of assessment findings.
6. Follow-up after 3-6 months to support usefulness of assessment report and recommendations.
IQ assessments measure intelligence in a standardized way that provides objective detailing of a client’s. IQ tests help to determine giftedness for applications to schools and societies that require it. Many clients find the tasks involved challenging and stimulating!
An achievement assessment provides a general understanding of a client’s academic abilities. Reading, writing, mathematics, and oral language are evaluated. These assessments are also used in school admissions applications sometimes.
Educational assessments are powerful tools for understanding how a client’s unique profile interacts with academic tasks such as memory, tests/quizzes, attention, planning tasks, initiating tasks, executing tasks, and general classroom participation. They typically are a combination of intelligence and achievement testing as a foundation upon which several other measures are added to answer your specific referral question. These evaluation batteries can provide a full range of rich information to help students do and feel their best.
Neuropsychological evaluations are helpful when we suspect that there may be concerns about cognitive functioning, memory difficulty, complex attention challenges, processing differences, and emotional functioning. Together we will work to find useful interventions and accommodations at school/work & home.
Difficulties with executive functioning (including attention) are quite common. We all have relative strengths and weaknesses when it comes to these complex mental processes. When clients are struggling to figure out why school, work, or relationships seem to be so challenging and attention difficulties appear to be in the mix, psychological assessment can provide clarity and helpful recommendations for support.
We’ve all taken tests like the Myers-Briggs or whatever the hot personality test of the moment is. The challenge is that most of these tests aren’t objective. They are fantastic conversation starters and can help to cultivate more personal awareness. However, they are much more prone to bias and inconsistent results. Formal personality assessment provides much more objective results that tons of research and validation supports. These assessments can help with everything from personal growth to identifying why you feel stuck in the same relationship patterns to clarifying key targets for therapy or coaching.
The rules for accommodations change when it comes to higher education. There is far less emphasis on students reaching their full potential and far more focus on what meets criteria for a legally protected disability that requires accommodation. Even then, how accommodations are defined and provided is quite variable. A clear and comprehensive psychological assessment can be an extremely useful tool for advocating for needed accommodations as students are facing ever more demanding academic challenges.
My vocational assessments are a bit different. Rather than focusing exclusively on finding the perfect job or what you might need to do to get that next promotion, my vocational assessments help to clarify what deeper and more meaningful engagement with purposeful work would look like for you. Sometimes what you need in the midst of feeling stuck at work or like you just need to change jobs is to be able to take a step back and understand more deeply what rich and meaningful work where you can make a real contribution would look like for you.
This long list of different types of psychological assessment is a little daunting. If you are not sure what type of assessment you are looking for, just reach out and we can talk it through!
While they are often used interchangeably, they speak to the different levels of complexity and sophistication. Testing just measures one dimension. Evaluation combines several tests to examine a dimension from several angles. Assessment synthesizes evaluations into interpretations. Many professionals can do testing and even evaluation. Only licensed psychologists are legally allowed to do assessments.
Depending on the type of testing being done, sessions will be from 45 minutes to 4 hours at a time.
Dr. Rosales does not accept insurance for psychological assessment. If you are requesting assessment as a second opinion and the school is covering the cost, the required paperwork will be provided.
Yes, Dr. Rosales does provide concierge psychological assessment services. A phone call for careful planning of the testing environment is required.
It is notoriously difficult to provide costs for quality assessments because they must be tailored to your specific needs and questions. The most basic assessments that might just require 1 or 2 core tests will cost around $1000. A comprehensive evaluation where testing across cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and personality domains along with further follow up and advocacy in the more complex cases would likely be closer to $10,000. However, both of these scenarios are uncommon. While I wish I could be more precise, we really would need to discuss your testing needs to arrive at a more accurate estimate. After completing the initial evaluation interview, you will receive a confirmation or adjustment of the initial estimate based on the tests that I determine need to be included to answer your questions and meet your needs.
Conducting psychological evaluations is a subspecialty within an already highly specialized field…so the reality is that there are both limited options as well as high costs. The truth is that many cutting edge psychologists are using evidenced-based tests and processes with a reasonable time turn around. These aren’t the factors that set apart great evaluations. When seeking psychological testing, it can be invaluable to have an initial consultation with your psychologist to see if they both understand what you are looking for and to have a sense of whether you will appreciate working with them.
Assuming you feel like working with me is a good fit, what makes my psychological assessments stand out is the integration of a process-based approach to understanding psychological challenges. You will still get the applicable diagnosis because this is unfortunately what is required to get the necessary accommodation at school or work from a legal perspective. However, my interpretive reports and recommendations use an understanding of challenges as mental processes instead of a set of symptoms. To read more about the cutting edge shift in psychology away from a medicalized symptoms focus to a systems process focus, check out my introductory blog post.
Furthermore, my recommendations go beyond a prescription of accommodations (although these may be necessary and helpful). Instead of using a medical & mechanistic approach to understanding your challenges, we will use a contextual and functionalist approach. What does this mean? Basically, we won’t look at your life through a lens of words like “illness, broken, or maladaptive” like most therapy still assumes. Instead, we will focus on what is working for you in different situations and how to get more support with what is working. You will walk away with advice for how to build new skills and rely less on what isn’t working as well. To understand more about functional contextualism and how it goes a step beyond the popular “positive psychology,” check out my introductory blog post.
Most of the time, many of the tests can be done in 1-4 hours for the shorter assessment types and 4-8 hours for the average medium sized test battery. This means 1-2 intensive sessions is usually enough. Sometimes, we will need to add tests based on initial findings and this can mean a third session.
Give me a call! Just leave your name and number that I can call you back on.
Please know that email is not considered a secure messaging platform for health/medical information.
