What is a neuropsychological evaluation for children?

 The basic premise of doing such a child neuropsychological evaluation is to determine what the cognitive abilities are in the child.  This consists of giving a battery of tests measuring a variety of cognitive functions such as attention and concentration, vocabulary, abstract reasoning, and planning ahead.  By giving an overall intelligence test battery (usually one of the Wechsler scales), one can compare the child’s overall ability to specific functions to see where the problems are.  Additionally, by comparing intelligence to achievement tests in reading, writing and math, one can determine if there is a learning disability in one or more of these areas.  In order to get accommodations for a learning disability at school or for standardized tests (such as the SAT), a full evaluation is necessary.  A letter from a doctor or psychologist is not enough to get accommodations.

What is a sign that may indicate that my child needs a neuropsychological evaluation?

An important sign is your child becoming frustrated by not being able to keep up with learning in school.  Children are not likely to come out and say this directly.  They may “act out” and become cranky, or cry, or become aggressive.  This behavioral acting out is normal, but it can make for an unpleasant household.  One should always contact the teacher(s) to see what their perspective is.  The teacher may recommend a psychological, psycho-educational or neuropsychological evaluation.  And of course, we advocate the latter one, because it includes all of what you need.

Does your child need a neuropsychological evaluation?

If your child is having problems in learning, and in keeping up with the other children in school, it would be a good idea to get such a neuropsychological evaluation.  Sometimes parents want an evaluation just to get a baseline as to where their child stands, even if there are no problems the child is having at school.  Many years ago, some parents decided to have such an evaluation done for their 13 year old daughter.  She was not having any problems in school, and she was getting average grades.  She was a little slow in reading, but the truth is that this is not tested nor does it matter much in early years if you are a slow reader.  They decided to get the evaluation done because they are both attorneys, and they knew that having documentation at an early age would be a good idea, just in case their daughter needed accommodations later in her life.  Well, you guessed it!  Four years later this young lady wanted extra time on the SAT, and in fact she was a slow reader.  Having the background documentation with the first evaluation made it easy to obtain the extra time on the SAT.  She has since come back to me three more times for evaluations (because evaluations for accommodations cannot be more than four years old) — one for law school (LSAT), one for the Bar, and another for a second state's Bar exam.

Most of the time, however, the reason you want a neuropsychological evaluation for your child is to find out why they are having problems in learning, or to determine the pattern of their cognitive abilities due to a neurological or developmental problem.

How can The Brain Clinic help?

Contact Us to find out how to schedule an appointment and to speak to Dr. Thomas. Call us at 212-268-8900.

We have done thousands of neuropsychological evaluations from the age of 3 to 92.  Dr. Thomas has been a neuropsychologist for 30 years, and the child neuropsychologists have been in the field for over 20 years.  We do the best work in the city, and people from all over the country come to see us.  The advantage of having a neuropsychologist do these kinds of evaluations (as opposed to a psycho-educational evaluation) is that we know about the brain-behavior relationships in addition to the psych-educational aspects.

If you want to receive more information about neuropsychological evaluations, and other services, treatments, and articles from The Brain Clinic, sign up for our newsletter!

© 2003-2010 Lawrence Thomas