Do you take my insurance?
I am not a preferred provider with any insurance companies. Fees for my services may be reimbursable by your insurance company, and I encourage you to contact your health insurance representative. Not all psychological testing services are covered by health insurance, however. Insurance policies and companies differ in their coverage. It is your responsibility to determine the benefits of your particular policy.
Please contact me to discuss fees for my services.
What is your availability?
Generally, I schedule 1-2 months ahead for testing. School vacation days often fill up well ahead of time since testing has to be done in the morning and parents often don't like to take a child out of school.
I do have after-school hours available for psychotherapy.
Why does testing have to be done in the morning?
We want to assess a child's strengths and weaknesses, not performance on these tests when tired, or after a long day at school. I also do not test children when they are ill and I prefer not to test them if they have to miss something fun, like a party or field trip.
Which tests do you use?
I use standard, well researched test instruments to study different aspects of a child's functioning. After the initial interview with parents, I develop some questions that the parents and I would like to have answered by the testing. Common questions are: does the child have a learning disability, or why is my child failing in school when she is so bright? Why does my child seem so angry all the time? Is this normal adolescence or is there a problem I should be dealing with? Test results are compared against results for a sample of children of the same age, to obtain a good measure of whether behaviors in question are appropriate for the child's age.
I start with an intelligence test followed by achievement tests to determine how the child thinks and learns. I then might administer tests of attention or more in-depth testing if I suspect a learning disability, or tests of emotional and personality functioning if the problem seems to be in that area of the person's life.
Parents can obtain more information about these tests in books about psychological testing listed under resources on this website.
What should we tell our child?
I will discuss this with you at our first meeting and we will develop something together that you feel will help your child approach this process in a spirit of cooperation, with a minimum of anxiety.
