Psycho-educational assessments in Calgary: Does your child need one?

  • Home
  • /
  • Blog
  • /
  • Psycho-educational assessments in Calgary: Does your child need one?
happy family

Watching your child suffer and struggle is frustrating, especially when you know they are brilliant and put in the effort of studying hard but tussle with taking exams and meeting deadlines.

Experiencing the emotional battle and bad attitude towards school and learning is draining as a parent. Helping your child find better learning ways and focusing on their specific needs can take away that constant battle and conflict. Finding an online psychologist near you and performing a psychoeducation assessment might be the right option for you.

What is a Psycho-Educational Assessment?

Receiving a psycho-educational assessment near you involves a review of fundamental psychological processes influencing intellectual learning and social and emotional development. Understanding your child’s strengths and weaknesses is empowering for both of you. Knowing who your child is and helping them understand and embrace their differences while learning to utilize their natural abilities and develop others will continue to set them up with life management skills long after school. Being different is a good thing, and being unique has many benefits. Not every child learns the same way, processes information the same way, or understands things the same way. Unfortunately, as a child, being different draws attention that isn’t always positive, resulting in low self-esteem and behavioural issues. Kids want to be accepted and can’t always see the beauty of being unique. Helping them understand themselves, their highs and lows, giving them alternative solutions to how they are educated, and connecting with new social supports encourage and inspire self-esteem growth. With new confidence, a notable change in their perception of who they are and what they can accomplish will begin.

Who Should Receive a Psycho-Educational Assessment?

Signs indicating your child may benefit from a psycho-educational assessment include:

  • Loss of interest in school
  • Self-doubt and low confidence
  • Unusual difficulty grasping new concepts/skills
  • Cannot finish homework and study effectively without help
  • Particular challenge understanding new ideas/abilities
  • The marked inconsistency in grades, such as high marks in English and low grades in Math
  • Noticeable problems with concentration

What Happens At an Assessment?

When you visit a psychologist near you that will perform the assessments, they will go through various steps and ways of gathering relevant information. Your phycologist will conduct interviews with parents, educators, and the child if appropriate. Your psychologist will plan a full day of observation, and testing will be scheduled for 4-8 hours. Your child will be evaluated for the following:

  • Logic and resolving challenges skills
  • Language abilities
  • Working memory
  • Attention span
  • Incorporating visual/motor capabilities
  • Comprehensive selection of executive functions that include their aptitude for preparing the structure, organization, and how well they control compulsions.

A psycho-educational assessment will evaluate your child’s accomplishments in particular grade-appropriate subjects, such as math, reading, and writing.

Once the phycologist performing the testing has completed the comprehensive report, they will share their recommendations involving your child’s best course of action. This report could include a diagnosis of learning disabilities. Learning disabilities are not a sign of low intelligence. With timely intervention and access to adapting to a new learning process, children discover ways to manage their differences successfully. Learning disabilities are not behaviour issues, nor are they psychological problems. They are not caused by visual, hearing, or motor impairment and are not tied to intellectual disabilities or autism. Learning disabilities refer to trouble processing information. Many children with learning disabilities achieve excellent grades and go on to enjoy productive careers and successful lives.

Resources and recommendations could include an IEP or an individual education plan. Suggestions for which learning environment would be the most appropriate for your child’s requirements and which school and social supports would enhance your child’s quality and experience in school, work, and life will be included. Strategies for school services, as well as home support procedures, can be set up.

Our goal is treatment planning and moving forward. It is important to implement change and goals in a new direction. If you want to kick start your struggling child’s life and set them in a new direction with professional advice and get to the bottom of why your child isn’t meeting their potential, then call us, and we can set that up for you.