Assessment and Evaluation
A graphic that reads TheraThrive Neurodivergent Assessment where the words are surrounded by 5 circular icons that depict autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, giftedness/2e, and OCD.

Now is the time to thrive

Assessment and Evaluation

 

Our assessment process is tailored to each individual to help bring clarity to a complex presentation. Assessment can be for children ages 2 and up, teens and adults, depending upon the needs and situation.

Assessment has many benefits, including gaining self-understanding, getting needed accommodation at school, testing-sties and/or the work-place, and to pinpoint underlying factors that may impact your experiences in life.

Our Stance Towards Assessment

Our stance towards assessment is therapeutic and person-centered, where we combine humanistic principles with psychological testing. We value the assessments than can be both healing and reparative. We utilize a multi-step process to uncover how you learn and view the world, as well as to identify strengths and challenges you may have, which may impact you at school, work, home, and/or social situations. Because we have focused on serving neurodivergent populations for over a decade, we have the necessary experience and knowledge base to provide you with personalized recommendations and strategies to help you develop work-arounds, get accommodations that you need, and develop supportive skills to improve your wellbeing in life.

How Our Evaluation Process Stands Out

We view psychological assessment as an opportunity to identify and answer specific questions and concerns, as well as a means for therapeutic understanding and connection.

Our assessors are experienced assessment specialists that offer extraordinary services, specifically tailored for you, your child and/or family.

Our assessment process is focused on gaining information and clarity on your specific presentation in order to shed light on how you view yourself (or your child), your experiences in life, and the way in which you navigate the world. Assessment can also deepen self-understanding, growth and well-being.

  • We are values driven; our values guide the evaluation process from start to finish.
  • Our testing meets the highest standards (for example, our tests are accepted by the Davidson Institute and others.)
  • We begin by identifying your goals and hopes for the evaluation together, along with you.
  • We develop a proposed protocol, timeline, and estimate for the evaluation.
  • We value collaborationcuriosity, and the context in which your child and family live.
  • We remain connected with you, your child and/or family throughout the evaluation.
  • We discuss the process and procedures throughout the evaluation.
  • We identify strengths, gifts, and successes specific to you or your child, while also exploring areas for growth and support.
  • We plan for how to integrate and utilize the results of the evaluation to continue on the path to success through child and family specific recommendations, referrals, and next-steps.
  • You may choose to receive a comprehensive and meaningful report, scrupulously written specifically for you, your family, and/or school, or you may choose to receive a diagnostic summary that contains a full list of recommendations along with a general summary of findings.
  • We discuss and make meaning of the results together, in a comprehensive feedback session.

TheraThrive’s Assessment Style: Therapeutic, Reparative, Collaborative and Counseling Assessments

Please click below to learn more about TheraThrive’s assessment style.

What Is Therapeutic Assessment?

  • Therapeutic Assessment is an approach to psychological testing that still utilizes standardized tests and measures and additionally focuses on the person as a whole.
  • Therapeutic assessment can be a healing experience, where we take into account your self-knowledge, thoughts and feelings in a collaborative and empathetic style that is often described as a deeply therapeutic experience.
  • Our therapeutic assessment is not typical. Typical assessment may focus on getting questions answered as quickly as possible in order to provide you with testing results. While our therapeutic approach also provides efficient testing results, our pacing is geared to your needs, and is holistic, personalized, and warm.
  • We love the complexity of assessment, and to puzzle out which testing materials might best solve the riddle of your assessment questions, and we take advantage of our natural curiosity to learn more about your presentation and who you are beneath the masking.
  • Therapeutic assessment can bring therapeutic change via being heard, understood, and by experiencing ah-ha moments of self-understanding.
  • Through a therapeutic lens, we see you as the expert in your life, and you are involved in all parts of the assessment, including determining what questions the assessment process will answer, as well as discussing test results, possible meanings, and recommended support options with you at your feedback session.

What Is Reparative Assessment?

At TheraThrive we offer reparative assessment as part of our assessment services. Reparative assessment is often sought out when someone has had a challenging, difficult, and/or even potentially traumatizing assessment experience in the past, where they felt dismissed and/or unheard. Sadly, this can happen often and we are here to help you recover from such an experience.

From the moment we meet with you, we want to learn more about you, your life, your strengths and your struggles. We include you along the way when determining the best tests to utilize and symptoms to focus on. We offer a collaborative feedback session as well, to ensure that we communicate our findings to you and what these findings then mean. Our goal is to help you discover more about yourself, your mental health, and to leave here feeling heard and acknowledged.

What Is Collaborative Assessment?

At TheraThrive, we provide collaborative assessment, which involves a process of working together with you and with your support system. We take into account and do our best to accommodate your unique needs and challenges.  

Our assessors also collaboratively clinically with one another. Instead of a single professional conducting the assessment, a collaborative approach may involve two or more clinicians with different areas of expertise contributing to the evaluation. The different professionals involved will review the results of these assessments and share their insights with each other to develop a comprehensive understanding of your functioning.

The collaborative approach allows for a more thorough assessment that takes into account all aspects of your psychological well-being. By working with a team of professionals, you can benefit from their different perspectives and areas of expertise, leading to a more accurate and tailored treatment plan.

What Is Counseling Assessment?

According the California Association of Professional Clinical Counselors (CALPCC Scope of Practice), “assessment means selecting, administering, scoring, and interpreting tests, instruments, and other tools and methods designed to measure an individual’s attitudes, abilities, aptitudes, achievements, interests, personal characteristics, disabilities, and mental, emotional, and behavioral concerns and development and the use of methods and techniques for understanding human behavior in relation to coping with, adapting to, or ameliorating changing life situations,” which are part of the counseling assessment process.

Through counseling assessment, we develop a therapeutic client/clinician relationship (we work therapeutically and collaboratively). We use carefully selected standardized tests and measures to help clarify and assess the presenting problem(s) or question(s) you may have. Next, we identify and set treatment goals through interpretation and integration of the assessment testing results. Last, we design and implement interventions through a detailed and personalized report that contains recommendations and referrals (all of our report types include personalized recommendations).

What We Test (DSM V-TR)

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Autism

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

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Specific learning disabilities, including dysgraphia, dyslexia, and dyscalculia

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IQ/Giftedness

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Twice exceptionality (2e)

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Anxiety

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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

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Depression

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Socio-emotional Functioning

Our Assessment Services

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Testing clients of all ages: children ages 3+, teenagers and adults

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Therapeutic psychological assessment

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Reparative psychological assessment

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Collaborative psychological assessment

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Comprehensive psychological evaluation and assessment 

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Providing second opinions and/or review of previous psychological evaluations and testing

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Identifying strengths, gifts, successes specific to you or your child, while also exploring areas for growth and support

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Support with personalized recommendations and referrals

An evaluation process may consist of one assessment test or several, depending upon your situation and the type of concerns, challenges or questions you have. If more than one test is utilized, it might be called a comprehensive assessment, battery assessment, or comprehensive evaluation.

What to Expect: The Evaluation Process

At TheraThrive, we understand that our clients may be highly sensitive, intense and/or experience some anticipation or anxiety around the testing process. We will do our best to welcome you, offer a comfortable environment for testing, dim lights, provide fidgets, pillows, blankets weighted stuffies, and offer breaks and snacks as needed.

The process of evaluation will depend upon the specific goals and assessment tests utilized. The steps in an evaluation process typically include:

1.  You contact us to request an appointment, which lets us know you would like to connect, and we schedule a complimentary 15 minute consultation call where we discuss your situation, needs, testing plan, fees, and answer any questions you may have.

2.  We further develop a testing plan that is geared towards your specific needs.

3. We send your testing plan to you, a Good Faith Cost Estimate, and other paperwork.

4.  We schedule your first meeting, which is usually a clinical interview to learn background information and history, which pertains to the testing topic. We also schedule your consultation session with a TheraThrive Director (Grace Malonai, PhD, LPCC or Katie Malone, LPCC, LMFT).

5.  You complete online documentation, which includes an informational intake form, and then have your first meeting.

6.  The testing/assessment process typically takes between weeks -to- months to complete, depending upon your needs and the type of evaluation. Some assessments may take a bit longer, and some a bit less time. The testing meetings will likely be broken up into several sessions. During the assessment process, you may be asked to participate in a variety of testing types, such as interviews, questionnaires, remote online testing, and in-office standardized tests. Some testing may involve a family member, a relative, and/or your child’s teacher to complete, if you would like and it appears beneficial. Some tests can only be completed in-office, while others can be completed either online or in-office.

7. During your assessment process you may meet with a TheraThrive Director.

8. After your data is collected, we score, review, analyze and compile to integrate your data. We may request additional information at this point as well.

9. We write your choice of a Comprehensive Report or Diagnostic Summary report. This process may take some time, depending upon the complexity.

10.  Feedback session: After the testing and written report(s) are completed, we will provide you with a feedback meeting (online or in-office, depending upon your preference). This meeting may be with you, or with you and your partner or family member; if our client is a child then the meeting may be with parents only, or with both child and parents, or two separate meetings, depending upon the developmental age of the child. During the feedback session, we review results and findings, discuss recommendations, and address any remaining questions.

Graphic image illustrating 10 steps in the TheraThrive assessment testing process

Your Choice: We Offer 2 Types of Reports

Each Report Style Can Help

Both our Diagnostic Summary Reports and Comprehensive Reports include detailed recommendations and accommodation needs based on your unique needs and circumstances that can be used to:

  • Confirm or rule out diagnosis(es)
  • Discover comorbidity
  • Gain in understanding
  • Complete a picture
  • Provide details of relative strengths and challenges
  • Inform treatment Strategies
  • Guide recommendations and specific accommodation needs
  • Repair
  • Self-understanding, self-acceptance
  • Family/community understanding, family/community acceptance
  • Communicate diagnostic information and accommodation needs to schools
  • Communicate accommodation needs to employers
  • Provide healthcare providers, insurance companies, or legal professionals with diagnostic information
  • Inform treatment planning and help guide interventions and referrals for mental health services
Graphic depicting TheraThrive's Assessment Hours by Type of Assessment

Assessment Fees

The total cost for evaluation and assessment is based upon the amount of time associated with completing the evaluation and diagnostic note or comprehensive report. Our assessment rate is $359 per hour for a licensed assessor. Rates are $300 per hour for an associate assessor (availability for an associate assessor may be more limited).

The amount of time needed to complete the assessment process is based on the type of evaluation (see below), what is being assessed, tests utilized, and your particular presentation and needs. The types of evaluation and assessment vary greatly, and we welcome (and thrive with) complex cases. 

If you have questions about assessment costs, or anything else, please contact us. We are always happy to connect!

We will provide you with a detailed estimate prior to initiating assessment and/or evaluation. We will ask you to pay for your first hour at the time of your first assessment meeting, which is typically a Clinical Interview. Once testing commences we ask that you pay the full testing amount up front in order to begin the testing and/or evaluation process, and we will credit that first hour towards the total.

Testing sessions may be scheduled in 45/50 minute or 100 minute time blocks, depending upon your needs. We may schedule testing over half a day, with a break, in cases where in-office testing needs to be completed in one sitting (only if you prefer this). 

There are several types of sessions:

  • Clinical interviews
  • Observational session
  • Testing in-office or online
  • Remote site testing
  • Feedback session
  • Consultation meetings

Assessment Process FAQ

Please click below to learn more about the assessment and evaluation process.

How do I talk with my child about the assessment process?

It’s important to be both careful and honest when talking with your child about assessment. What to say depends upon your child’s age, developmental strengths, and the topic of assessment.

In general, when you talk with us about the assessment process, we will strategize with you ways to talk about the assessment process. For example, depending upon your unique situation, it might be more helpful to avoid using the word “test” or “games,” and instead describe the assessment process as working on various activities that help you make decisions about school and/or get the right type of support. In regards to expectations, your child can be prepared to follow sets of instructions.

How can my child study or prepare for the assessment?

Please do not coach or prep your child for assessment, and please do not expose your child to assessment testing material prior to the evaluation. This would invalidate test results. Instead, the best way to prepare is to help your child understand that they will need to listen carefully, to follow directions, and to relax and just be themself. It is also helpful to start the testing process well rested and not hungry.

How long will the assessment process take?

The assessment process typically takes a few weeks to a few months, depending upon the type of assessment and scheduling needs.

How long are testing appointments?

Testing meetings generally last between 1-3 hours each, depending upon the test type, attention of the tester, and scheduling needs. We typically schedule only one meeting per day, however if it is your preferene and it makes sense to do so, we may schedule more than one meeting in a given day with breaks between.

Meeting duration times may also vary because some test takers test shorter or longer than others. Thus, the amount of time actually required to complete testing may depend upon your unique presentation.

We may generally schedule younger children with more shorter meetings, and older children or adults with fewer, longer rmeetings. However please keep in mind that some people work faster or slower than others, regardless of age.

At our first clinical meeting, in addition to starting the testing process, we will review the testing plan together, and schedule future sessions.

In general, it is probably best to plan on spending approximately 1- 2 hours per scheduled session. We will let you know ahead of time approximately how long each meeting will take, and if it seems that the process will take longer or shorter than anticipated, we will certainly let you know.

Will my child get a break, or do they need to sit still for 2 hours?

You or your child will not have to sit still for longer than it is comfortable to do so. We allow for breaks and appropriate pacing. We provide weighted stuffies, blankets, pillows, fidgets, and snacks. We encourage you or your child to take restroom breaks, hydrate or have a snack, as needed. We understand the need to move around, and will be kind and accommodate you or your child’s needs.

Can I observe my child's testing?

Although we welcome parents to join their children for family therapy meetings, the assessment process is different, and in most cases it is not advisable for a parent to observe the assessment.

The assessor will meet with parents prior to beginning testing. Parents are expected to wait in the waiting room during the evaluation, and reading material, internet access, water and tea are provided for waiting parents.

One important source of the information is how your child responds during when parents are not present. This will also provide insight regarding how your child will perform in school. If you have a special situation, please talk with us ahead of time. We will do our best to accommodate your needs within allowable parameters of the assessment.

The assessor will work to help your child feel relaxed, and will approach the activities positively. In addition, test items are designed to be appealing and engaging to children, which will help them feel more at ease.

When can I expect the results of the assessment?

We will schedule a feedback meeting to go over assessment results with you after the tests are scored, evaluated and written up in a diagnostic note or comprehensive report. This may take a few weeks -to- a few months, depending upon the type of testing and the testing process duration. If you have a deadline, we will make every effort to assist you, however please schedule assessments with sufficient time to guarantee any deadlines are met.

Can I cancel or reschedule my appointment?

Yes. Appointments are often made several weeks or months in advance. For this reason, we ask that if you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment, please be considerate to those who may be able to use that time, and provide at least 48 hours in advance notice for a cancellation. Please note that a late cancellation fee of $359 per each 50 minutes scheduled will be charged for appointments cancelled without 48 hours’ notice (except in cases of true emergency).