FAQS
What is a school psychologist?
U.S. trained school psychologists are uniquely qualified professionals who support students, teachers, and families. By applying their expertise in mental health, learning, and behavior, they help children and youth achieve success academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally. School psychologists collaborate with families, teachers, school administrators, and other professionals to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments, strengthening the connections between home, school, and the community.
To become a school psychologist, individuals undergo specialized advanced graduate preparation that includes both coursework and practical experiences relevant to psychology and education. They typically complete a specialist-level degree program and a year-long supervised internship. This graduate preparation equips them with knowledge and skills in areas such as data collection and analysis, assessment, progress monitoring, school-wide practices to promote learning, resilience and risk factors, consultation and collaboration, home and school interventions, instructional support, crisis preparedness, therapeutic approaches, and professional ethics, among others.
Why should I have my child assessed?
Seeing your child struggle with learning in school can be very frustrating. A psycho-educational evaluation can provide answers to several key questions:
- What are my child's learning strengths and weaknesses?
- What is my child's cognitive functioning, and how does it affect their academic achievement?
- How do my child's processing abilities impact their academic performance?
- How does my child's social-emotional behavior influence their academic success?
- What role does my child's attention modality play in their academic achievement?
- What is my child's current level of academic functioning?
- Does my child have characteristics similar to diagnoses such as Autism, ADHD, Learning Disorders, Intellectual Disability, Anxiety, or Depression?
- What accommodations and interventions are necessary for my child to make adequate progress toward grade-level standards?
Overall, the purpose of a psycho-educational evaluation is to provide a comprehensive view of how your child thinks and learns. This information can identify strengths, weaknesses, and learning gaps, and it also offers baseline data for your child's school and outside agencies to provide appropriate interventions and services.
How does language development impact the assessment results?
Many standardized psychological and academic tests are normed on monolingual English-speaking populations. This can introduce bias when evaluating a multilingual student, as their performance may not accurately reflect their true abilities. Adjustments or alternative assessments may be necessary. It's also important to consider the student's sociocultural background and experiences, as these can influence their performance on assessments. For example, the student's exposure to different educational systems or cultural norms may impact how they approach and respond to the evaluation.
ALL ASSESSMENTS ARE ADMINISTERED IN ENGLISH. If another language is needed, you will be referred to a more appropriate school psychologist or evaluator in your home language.
What is a Giftedness Assessment?
A giftedness assessment evaluates a child's cognitive functioning, which is commonly known as an Intelligence Test. It provides a child's overall Intelligence Quotient (IQ). This assessment will reveal how well a child thinks using words (verbal), how well a child thinks with pictures, puzzles, and blocks (nonverbal), how quickly a child processes information, and how well a child retains information (memory skills). Additional rating scales, background information, and supporting documents are used to determine the level of giftedness and needed support.
What are the evaluation areas?
Cognitive Assessment: These assessments measure how well a child thinks, remembers, and solves problems.
Academic Achievement: These assessments measure reading, spelling, arithmetic, oral and written language skills, and/or general knowledge.
Psychomotor Development and Perception: These assessments measure how a child receives, perceives, and interprets information through hearing, sight, and touch. These assessments may also measure visual-motor skills.
Social-Emotional Functioning: These assessments will indicate how a child feels about themself, get along with others, and take care of personal needs at home, at school, and in the community.
Adaptive Functioning: These assessments will indicate how a child takes care of personal needs at home, school, and in the community.
Executive Functioning: These assessments measure a child's working memory, organization skills, mental flexibility, self-control, and ability to plan.
What's the difference between a psychological assessment and a psych-educational assessment?
Psycho-educational evaluation is a process by which a school psychologist works with those involved in a child’s learning or development to identify the child’s strengths and weaknesses within the school setting. Its goal is to enhance everyone’s ability to help the child be as successful as possible in their educational journey. These often provide a wide range of recommendations for the school, family, and student.
Psychological assessments can have many similarities. However, these tend can have less connection to the school environment, sometimes miss academic achievement measures, and recommendations can be broader between home and school. Psychological assessments might also focus on formal medical diagnosis and intervention.