Assessments

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Assessments

ADHD is a type of neurodivergence that impacts a person’s ability to maintain attention and/or regulate impulses and energy levels. This may look like:

  • Difficulties maintain focus and attention on tasks, particularly ones that feel particularly difficult or boring, but ‘hyperfocusing’ on tasks of interest
  • Struggling with multi-step instructions (i.e. completing one but then getting distracted along the way, or simply forgetting)
  • Forgetting useful information (e.g. conversations had or appointments made) and losing important items regularly
  • Starting multiple different conversations and jumping around within a single conversation
  • Disorganisation in terms of task planning, getting ready, messiness
  • Hyperactivity such as talking consistently/too fast, racing thoughts, fidgeting or squirming
  • Difficulties with impulse control such as talking over people, interrupting, speaking before thinking, aggressive behaviour
  • Emotional dysregulation (i.e. people with ADHD often feel emotions quite quickly and more intensely than neurotypical folk)

 

All these difficulties significantly impact on a child’s ability to learn effectively in a classroom environment, or for an adult to complete their job without difficulty. It also can impact social relationships and family dynamics, and of most concern is self-esteem and identify.

It is important to mention that as people get older, their ability to compensate for these difficulties improves. For example, many people ‘slip through the cracks’ as they have learnt to utilise lists, calendars, timers etc to function. This is particularly so for anxious children, and particularly girls. Often these people seem to be functioning really well on the surface (e.g. still high performing at school or work) but take a lot longer to organise and complete tasks and, subsequently, are very burnt out.

If you are unsure whether it is worthwhile for you/your child to be assessed, we offer a 30 minute phone call service where a psychologist will get a brief run down about your concerns and provide advice as to whether an assessment is warranted and if so, which one.

ADULTS, be aware: if you are seeking medication, most psychiatrists no longer accept psychologist reports. They will often make you do another assessment, which means you are paying twice. In this instance, it may be worthwhile going straight to the psychiatrist.

For more information on how the assessment process works and what you will receive at the end of the process. See our ASD Child Assessment and Adult Assessment Flyers for more information.

ASD is, as the name suggests, such a broad spectrum that it is difficult to easily explain its impacts. In a general sense, this type of neurodivergence impacts a person’s ability to interact socially, build and maintain social relationships, and can cause sensory differences, and restricted and repetitive interests and behaviours. This may look like:

  • Challenges with social and emotional reciprocity including a lack of interest in social connection (either initially or maintaining connections), awkward or inappropriate attempts at social connection, struggles with back and forth conversation, and/or a lack of understand of and expression of emotions and needs in self and others
  • Difficulties utilising and integrating social non-verbal cues such as eye contact, facial expressions (e.g. can be flat in affect), minimal body language and gesture use
  • General lack of understanding of social relationships, how they work, and their role within them
  • Repetitive behaviours including ‘stimming’ which can be obvious such as hand flapping or more subtle such as repetitive tongue or finger movements, in addition to lining up toys/objects, repeating back phrases (i.e. echolalia)
  • Extreme difficulty with transitions or changes to routine and plans, ‘black and white thinking’
  • Engaging in a very specific interest that is ‘all consuming’ (this can change over time)
  • Sensory differences – either avoidant of certain sensory input (e.g. certain food textures or clothing tags), or sensory seeking (e.g. seeking music/sound, certain textures to soothe)

 

As with ADHD, masking is something very common with ASD and particularly in girls and women. It is common that a child will ‘mask’ their symptoms at school and then let out all of this overwhelm at home in their ‘safe space’. Some people are very good at masking so many of the above indications may not seem relevant but it is important to determine whether this is because it is not an issue, or if the person is trying hard to ‘do the socially appropriate thing’ i.e. maintaining eye contact, or forcing conversation based on prepared scripts.

For more information on how the assessment process works and what you will receive at the end of the process. See our ASD Child Assessment and Adult Assessment Flyers for more information.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

(ASD) Assessments

Cognitive Assessments

Every person learns differently, and a cognitive assessment is a way to determine a person’s cognitive strengths and challenges. This can help tailor school/work tasks to a person’s strengths, and put in place supports in areas they may struggle with.

A cognitive assessment can also be used to determine whether a person has an intellectual disability, or if they are intellectually gifted.

A learning disorder is present when someone has the intellectual ability to learn but this is not reflected in their performance in a specific area such as reading, written expression, or mathematics. Often, people with this neurodivergence are of average or above intelligence, but their brains process information differently, which can be incredibly frustrating.

There are three main learning disorders:

  • Dyslexia – this impacts a person’s ability to read (e.g. comprehension, rate, or fluency) and can also impact decoding and spelling
  • Dysgraphia this impacts a person’s ability to plan and organise their thoughts into words in a coherent manner (e.g. often struggling with spelling, punctuation and grammar)
  • Dyscalculia – this impacts a person’s ability to process numerical information and can impact reading/understanding numbers, mathematical reasoning and retaining numerical information

 

In order to meet criteria for a learning disorder, a person’s struggles must persist despite six months of targeted intervention.

Learning Assessments

Location

Unit 6, 2 Phipps Close, 
Deakin, ACT 2600

Open Hours

Monday – Friday |  8am to 5pm
Session times vary by psychologist 

Contact

e. hello@feeltohealpsychology.com.au
p. (02) 6189 4840‬       f. (02) 6100 9244