A neuropsychological evaluation is a way of determining a person’s overall thinking, learning, attention and output abilities. It provides information on how a person’s brain works. A neuropsychological evaluation involves gathering information from a patient’s background, behavioral observations, and neuropsychological tests to understand a person’s unique development to clarify diagnosis and plan/provide treatment. It involves a clinical interview, detailed analysis of a person’s behavior in different settings and the administration of neuropsychological tasks. We evaluate the following:

• General cognitive ability
• Communicative and language skills
• Visuospatial processing
• Attentional capacities
• Executive (reasoning, organization, planning, inhibition) skills
• Learning and memory abilities
• Sensory and motor skills
• Social cognition and interpersonal skills
• Emotional adjustment
• Academic achievement, such as reading and math ​
• One’s ability to live independently and to manage financial affairs

Some abilities may be measured in more detail than others, depending on the patient’s needs. Specific tasks are chosen based on (1) the referral question or reason for the evaluation, (2) the person’s age, and (3) any previous evaluations. Observing a patient to understand his or her motivation, cooperation, and behavior is a very important part of the evaluation. The feedback session is an integral and very important component of the overall assessment. It is usually scheduled within two weeks of the last evaluation session.

Children are referred by a doctor, teacher, school psychologist, or other professional because of one or more problems, such as:

• Difficulty in learning, attention, behavior, socialization, or emotional control;
• A disease or inborn developmental problem that affects the brain in some way; or
• A brain injury from an accident, birth trauma, or other physical stress.

A neuropsychological evaluation assists in better understanding your child’s functioning in areas such as memory, attention, perception, coordination, language, and personality. This information will help you and your child’s teacher, therapists, and physician provide treatments and interventions for your child that will meet his or her unique needs.

Understanding a patient’s neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses can:

1. help explain the integrity of brain functions
2. clarify a diagnosis and identify brain areas that are involved
3. determine cognitive, emotional, or behavioral consequences from brain impairment
4. help determine if a given treatment and/or brain surgery (e.g., epilepsy, deep brain stimulation) is appropriate for a particular person and whether treatment has any positive or negative effects on cognitive functions and behavior
5. establish a baseline against which to measure the outcome of treatment (new medications, surgery) or an injury (athletes who are at risk for sustaining a concussion)
6. inform real-world interventions that are needed, including rehabilitation potential depending on daily functioning

The neuropsychologist will work with your physicians to combine results from medical tests, such as brain imaging, to help clarify diagnosis and help plan interventions. Test findings will help you and/or your child’s school, rehabilitation specialists, and doctors provide treatments and interventions for you and/or your child that will meet your unique needs.

Neuropsychological testing may be repeated at regular intervals to help monitor developmental, cognitive, emotional, and academic progress after treatments and/or injuries. Identification of any changes leads to interventions to help manage challenges. The goal is to develop strategies so that the individual can meet or exceed expectations at home, school, work, or in the community.

Testing results will be communicated with you and/or to your doctors (with your consent) by the neuropsychologist. You will receive a neuropsychological report that you can share with school personnel and others involved in care.

By comparing your child’s test scores to scores of children of similar ages, the neuropsychologist can create a profile of your child’s strengths and weaknesses. The results help those involved in your child’s care in a number of ways.

• Testing can explain why your child is having school problems. For example, a child may have difficulty reading because of an attention problem, a language disorder, an auditory processing problem, or a reading disability. Testing also guides the neuropsychologist’s design of interventions to draw upon your child’s strengths. The results identify what skills to work on, as well as which strategies to use to help your child.
• Testing can help detect the effects of developmental, neurological, and medical problems, such as epilepsy, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, or a genetic disorder. Testing may be done to obtain a baseline against which to measure the outcome of treatment or the child’s development over time.
• Different childhood disorders result in specific patterns of strengths and weaknesses. These profiles of abilities can help identify a child’s disorder and the brain areas that are involved. For example, testing can help differentiate between an attention deficit and depression or determine whether a language delay is due to a problem in producing speech, understanding or expressing language, social shyness, autism, or cognitive delay. Your neuropsychologist may work with your physician to combine results from medical tests, such as brain imaging or blood tests, to diagnose your child’s problem.
• Most importantly, testing provides a better understanding of the child’s behavior and learning in school, at home, and in the community. The evaluation can guide teachers, therapists, and you to better help your child achieve his or her potential.

• The questionnaires will help us to assess the needs of your child and family so that we can best determine how we can help.
• The information we are asking for is vital to the planning and treatment of your child. We ask for your patience and cooperation in filling out the requested information to the best of your ability.
• The first set of questionnaires will focus on your child and his/her behaviors, while the remaining questionnaires may be related to you and some possible challenges that you may experience as a function of parenting a child with developmental, medical, or behavioral difficulties and these stressors may also impact your child’s behavior.
• It may help to fill out the questionnaires over a period of days rather than in just one sitting. Other parents have also found it helpful to fill out these questionnaires at a time when they are least likely to be interrupted by the kids, such as after the kids’ bedtime. It typically takes about 1 hour to answer these questionnaires which is why we give you this “homework.” We can also set up our iPads in the office so you can do it during your child’s testing.