How do I prepare my child for testing?

All individual appointments are scheduled during the morning because young children are more alert during that period.  Do not send preschool children to school before the appointment because this can result in over-stimulation or fatigue.  Use your own judgment with school-age children.  

Your child’s appointment will take approximately 60 minutes, depending on his or her cognitive tempo.  Please do not schedule other appointments too closely around your child’s testing as individual differences among children produce some variability in the time required to complete the testing.

In order to ensure the comfort and confidence of your child, you should plan to remain in the waiting room during the appointment. 

What do I tell my child about the appointment?

You will have to take into account his or her sophistication and curiosity.  The following should give you some ideas. “Psychologists are thinking doctors  They are interested in how children learn.  In order to figure out how you learn best, they will ask you questions and ask you to do things with puzzles and blocks, too.  They will spend about an hour with you.  Some of it will be easy for you and some will be a little bit hard.  You should just try your best on all the questions and problems; you are not expected to know everything they will ask you.  Most children will enjoy it, and you probably will, too.”

 “We are going to see someone who figures out how children learn best. This will help us decide upon the right school for you.”  (Note:  Do not say the tests have to do with a school’s decision about admission.  Focus on your decision about the best school for your child.)

Please do not say that the psychologist will be playing games with your child.  While some of the activities are game-like and fun, others require both effort and discipline.  Although the materials and the tempo of the test are designed to appeal to children, the purpose of JATP testing is to help assess a child’s suitability for an accelerated curriculum. 

For older applicants (if the above does not satisfy her or him):“Working with the psychologist is part of what we do to decide about a school.  Do your best.  Remember that even though you may do very well, there may not be a space available at the schools we are interested in.”

How do I apply to have my child tested in the JATP program?

Complete an application to the school(s) to which you are applying for admission. Complete, detach, and mail the JATP Testing Application to one of the psychologists on the approved list.   (All psychologists in Lenox Psychological Associates are on the approved list.)  A check payable to “Psychologist’s Name/JATP” (example: Pamela Frey/JATP, Clare Rubin/JATP, Carol Raines Drummond/JATP, etc.) in the amount of $180.00 must accompany the application.  If we receive your application before December 16, 2005, an early application discount is applied, so that your fee will be $160.00

Upon receipt of your JATP application and payment, the psychologist will contact you for an appointment. Testing of applicants begins in October, and early contact with psychologists is encouraged. Remember, applications received by the psychologists by December 16, 2005 should include a check for $160; otherwise the check amount should be $180.

Cancellations:  Testing appointments that are cancelled and not rescheduled will incur a deduction in the refund Test Fee as follows:
$25 if cancelled at least 7 days in advance
$50 if cancelled with less than 7 days notice
There will be no refund if there is a cancellation within 48 hours of the appointment.  In the event of illness or family emergency, appointments may be rescheduled with no additional charge.
To ensure test validity, the test should be administered only once a year.

Test results will be mailed to the school(s) that parents have selected. General information concerning the results of the evaluation will be shared in writing with the parents. Parents who wish more detailed feedback may schedule an appointment with the psychologist at an additional cost

What do you test in this evaluation?

The goal of a psychological assessment is to discover the reasons for a child's difficulty adjusting to the routine demands of school, family, or peer group. Usually, when a child is referred for psychological assessment, something about the fit between the child and his or her emotional, social, and academic contexts is not right.

The data obtained from the child provide information about the following functional areas: general cognitive ability, communicative competence and language abilities, visuospatial processing, memory capacities, behavioral regulation, attentional capacities, socao-emotional status and adjustment, social cognition, motor skill (gross, fine, graphomotor), and academic achievement.

What methods do you use to evaluate my child?

These functional areas are assessed through administration of formal standardized tests, observations from parents and teachers, and the psychologist's observations of the child during the assessment. Outcome measures include achievement of developmental milestones, standardized test scores, performance relative to age or grade group on specific cognitive measures, and scores derived from behavioral inventories.

Not all cognitive, social, or emotional behaviors at all ages are best gauged by tests. In addition to questionnaires and inventories gathered from parents and teachers and the test results themselves, psychologists rely on informal measures including work samples; test limits (i.e., see if a child can perform a task with additional support); assess skills like outlining and summarizing that are not measured by tests, and observe behavior during testing.

The data obtained from parents and teachers are typically gathered through questionnaires and interviews. Information from the parents includes data about the child's family (cultural background, education, vocational status) and family history (medical, neurological, psychiatric conditions) and data about the child including birth history, developmental history, and medical, psychological, and educational history. Information from the teacher includes the child's standing relative to classmates in academic content areas as well as observations regarding neurocognitive areas important for school success like language, visuo-spatial functioning, attention, behavioral regulation, and motor skills as well as affective and social domains like motivation, emotional adjustment, and social skills. Additional data may be obtained from behavioral rating scales in order to more formally assess issues of behavioral regulation, social skills and peer interaction, and emotional equilibrium. At times, observation of the child at school or at home is part of an assessment.

How long can we expect it to take?

A comprehensive assessment within this framework typically takes from four to six hours of actual testing time, depending on the child's age, competence, and complexity of the referral question(s).

Why isn't there just one test for my child to take?

There is no single set of tests for evaluating the effect(s) of emotional, social, or neurocognitive stressors on the developing child. Instead, a thorough approach, a principled theoretical framework, and well specified neurocognitive, social, and emotional domains are what count. Discrepancies between or among scores aswell as variability within areas reveal patterns that are clinically relevant and useful; however, the frequently relied upon point discrepancy between scores has not been shown to be a valid way of identifying learning disorders. In fact, psychological reports that are heavily influenced by psychometrics miss the point entirely, which is to describe the nature of the child's developing neurocognitive, social, and emotional organization, especially his or her ability to respond to the changes in level and complexity of demands imposed by educational, family, and social contexts.

What should the written report include?

The psychological report should include the relevant history and background information, behavioral observations, test results and interpretation, diagnosis or descriptive formulation of the child's difficulty including how it was arrived at, risk factors, and recommendations for management and treatment. An interpretive interview with the parents (and adolescent) is held in order to communicate the findings, discuss the diagnosis and its formulation, predict the risk, and discuss recommendations for management and treatment. In most cases, the psychological report should be shared with the school, and a follow-up conference held to discuss its implications for educational planning. As the child moves up in school, the parent will probably have to take responsibility for sharing the report and its implications with subsequent teachers.  The psychological report and interpretive interview through their diagnostic formulation serve to mobilize resources for the child. These resources typically include professionals from the fields of medicine, psychology, and education as well as therapies like speech/language, occupational, and physical. The evaluation itself is a clinical intervention that often -- by changing the attributions for a child's difficulties -- enables the family and child to themselves become agents of change