Too often in the case of ADHD, the Evaluation is done in a rather haphazard fashion. Perhaps you’ve had the experience in which you’ve been asked to fill out a questionnaire on your child which is usually 100 or so questions asking you to rate various symptoms. Your child’s teacher is asked to do the same. The school psychologist collects the questionnaires, scores them and then it’s suggested that you see a pediatrician for a consultation. The pediatrician may spend an hour or so with you and your child and based upon her observations and the school report suggests a trial of medication.
Decisions such as whether or not to medicate a child should be based on more data and a better understanding of all the factors that might be impinging upon your child’s functioning. More importantly, we believe that other medication free interventions should be tried first to see whether improvement can be brought about before resorting to a medication. In fact, that is exactly what the American Academy of Pediatrics has recently recommended to their membership.
Thorough and accurate assessment is crucial to the identification and understanding of all of the kinds of difficulties we encounter in our practice. We conduct this process with respect and consideration for the individual, and always with an eye to arriving at a definitive picture, a fingerprint, of each individual's areas of strengths and weaknesses. The first step in helping your child is to obtain a truly complete and thorough diagnostic evaluation. Connecticut Educational Services provides a wide range of psychological and educational tests, including some new and exciting technologies.
A good diagnostic Evaluation should serve 2 purposes. It should provide a clear explanation of the trouble your child is having and should be a road map for how to get your child from where he is to where he can potentially be. At CES, we provide a thorough and complete diagnostic workup so that all conditions that may be affecting your child’s performance in school and behavior at home can be readily understood by all concerned.
