What Is An Educational Psychologist?

There are a few different times when a psychoeducational evaluation may be appropriate.

Have you been approached by your child’s school about their behavior or academic needs? Many children struggle with school in a variety of ways as they matriculate from elementary school through high school. Many of these struggles are normal and will come and go, sometimes with minimal interventions. Ideally, school staff are equipped with the knowledge and experience to address student changes in school performance, motivation, peer relationships, and even behavior. However, when interventions have been tried and accommodations have been implemented for a period of time with no resulting success, it may be time to ask for a psychoeducational assessment. 

Psychoeducational assessments are also recommended when a parent has concerns about their child's difficulty in reaching developmental milestones or behaviors that are interfering with normal, everyday activities. Regular childhood physicals can be a way for your pediatrician to identify potential difficulties in communication, motor development, social interactions and independence in life skills such as eating and toileting.

A third reason may be to help identify your child's unique learning styles, their cognitive strengths and weaknesses, and possible accommodations that can help them access their curriculum in the same manner as other students.   

In other words, "any child can learn when we work to remove the barriers to their success".

Psychological Assessments are as different as the children we assess! The client’s age, specific strengths and weaknesses, referral reason, and who is requesting the assessment are all factors in deciding how to set up the process. In general, information is collected in four ways: Observation, interview, norm-referenced testing and informal assessments. The process of an assessment begins with an intake and can take several sessions to gather information. Once all the information has been synthesized, a report will be written and then thoroughly discussed with the client or client’s guardian. The good thing is that the client doesn’t have to do anything special to prepare for the process other than be available. 

First and foremost, a psychological assessment can determine an educational or mental health by using specific criteria that is widely used by medical, educational and mental health professionals. A psychological evaluation can help determine the following: the presence of depression or anxiety, academic strengths and weaknesses (to include a diagnosis of dyslexia or other related learning disability), emotional concerns, personal coping styles, how to manage aggressive behavior, information about how you view the world, executive functioning deficits, and feedback on your personality style.

Once the client's team understands the complexity of how they function in their world, a treatment plan can be developed so that interventions can begin. In other words, assessments allow the building each person's unique pathway for successfully integrating with the world around them.