Cognitive, Educational and ADHD Assessments
We provide individually tailored, research based assessment, treatment and recommendations for a range of cognitive and educational issues seen in childhood. Our clinic head Tania Pickering has a masters in Clinical Neuropsychology and as such has the comprehensive training necessary to provide in depth assessment and ongoing support for your child. She provides a wholistic approach to assessment, taking into consideration the person in context with their life along with their cognitive strengths and weaknesses. This means looking at the cognitive, psychological, lifestyle and social aspects of the person on an individual level.
The main aim of the assessments apart from diagnosis is to help create an effective and easy to navigate plan for the future. To help parents get the information and resources they need to help kids thrive no matter their quirks. We also work with the child’s school to make sure the information and support is continued here. There will always be an action plan for home and school provided as well as any professional referrals given. She conducts assessments on the northern beaches and North shore or Sydney Australia
- Specific learning disorders (reading, spelling, writing, math)
- ADHD and related attention/executive functioning issues
- school readiness
- memory issues
- intellectual disability
- Giftedness
- psychological and emotional disorders
- other paediatric neuropsychological conditions
Is your child having a specific difficulty with reading writing or math?
We help identify specific learning issues and create a remediation plan to help.
We conduct evidence-based reading, spelling and writing remediation in house and give recommendations to other great evidence-based programs and resources suited to your child.
Do you suspect that your child might have ADHD?
We have many years of experience assessing children with attention and executive functioning issues and helping you to create a plan to help manage the difficulties you are seeing.
There are also lots of other difficulties that can look like ADHD so ruling these out is a big part of the process. Figuring out what is going on and creating a comprehensive plan can make a big difference to day to day life and school.
We are also happy to look into any academic issues also and how these are interacting with attention and executive functioning issues. There are lots of options for kids with ADHD and exploring these will be a very important part of the processes.
Pre assessment:
We will send you an intake form and a number of questionnaires to fill in before you come into clinic so that we can get a good idea about what we will need to cover
Initial session:
We will have an initial session with parents to discuss the current concerns and direction of assessment. We can do this over a Telehealth service if necessary.
Testing sessions:
Because every human mind is unique, the neuropsychological assessments provided are individual for every child depending on the core issues and underlying functional weaknesses. Which tests to use are established by talking to the parents and teachers and performing some pre-assessment questionnaires. Then as the assessment goes along adjustments in tests are made depending on what is found during testing.
Testing will happen over one or two sessions depending on the age of your child and how much needs to be covered. Normally this will require the student to take half a day off school and each session can last anywhere between 2 and 4 hrs. Parents will only be required to drop off and pick up their child.
Feedback session:
This session is also with the parents to go through the results of assessment and talk about recommendations and diagnosis if appropriate.
Assessment aims to provide you with knowledge about your child’s cognitive strengths and weakness, any other contributing factors to the clinical picture, as well as short term and long term strategies for the future. This includes strategies for home and school as well as referrals to specialists or programs for therapy or training.
