CAAT vs. Mindwell neuropsych eval

[Anonymous]

We have an appointment in November with CAAT for a full neuropsych eval. Does anyone have experience with Dr. Catherine Kraper?

Alternatively, it seems we will be able to get into Mindwell for an evaluation in July or August. Does anyone have a specific (recent) practitioner there that they recommend?

Cost is about the same with both. Is CAAT worth the extra wait? Anyone to avoid at either practice? If you disliked either practice, can you give me specifics as to why I should avoid them?

Most of our issues with DS haven't shown up in school....yet....so a private eval is our best (only!) option right now. I've read through the forum, but looking for specific and more recent experiences.

[Anonymous]

I can't speak to CAAT, but we used Dr. Varia at Mindwell for our initial diagnosis of dyslexia/dyscal/dysgraph about 4 years ago. Report was OK. She didn't give us a ton of school/Assistive tech recommendations. Plus she left out a HUGE section asking for math accommodations (e.g., use of calculator). We asked for her to put something in. She was just OK. Her office was nice an open.

[Anonymous]

We worked with Dr. Kraper at CAAT last summer. She was good, patient and kind to our DD (6 at the time). It did take a couple months to get our full neuropsych assessment but she provided an executive summary and we moved on her initial suggestions. She also mentioned willingness to be part of our IEP committees and allowed us to have a follow up meeting about a year out to discuss our progress and provide confirmation/guidance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We worked with Dr. Kraper at CAAT last summer. She was good, patient and kind to our DD (6 at the time). It did take a couple months to get our full neuropsych assessment but she provided an executive summary and we moved on her initial suggestions. She also mentioned willingness to be part of our IEP committees and allowed us to have a follow up meeting about a year out to discuss our progress and provide confirmation/guidance.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback! Did you feel like her assessment was thorough and accurate? Did she really seem to "get" your child? Were the suggested interventions helpful? We are less on the learning disability path with our DS who is 7 (doing fine in school so far, testing on grade level, and probably wouldn't qualify for an IEP right now even if we tried). Our issues are more behavioral.

We are seeking the evaluation/diagnosis somewhat preemptively - to better understand him, and to know what we can do at home or in private therapy settings to offer more support. Although there are probably some 504 school accommodations that could be helpful right now. DS is somewhat complex because he doesn't neatly fit into any boxes and works really hard to effectively mask at school. ADHD, anxiety, Autism (or all of the above) have been suggested, but none of them seem like the "perfect" fit. We want to work with a psych who will keep an open mind and take a wholistic approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with Dr. Kraper at CAAT last summer. She was good, patient and kind to our DD (6 at the time). It did take a couple months to get our full neuropsych assessment but she provided an executive summary and we moved on her initial suggestions. She also mentioned willingness to be part of our IEP committees and allowed us to have a follow up meeting about a year out to discuss our progress and provide confirmation/guidance.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback! Did you feel like her assessment was thorough and accurate? Did she really seem to "get" your child? Were the suggested interventions helpful? We are less on the learning disability path with our DS who is 7 (doing fine in school so far, testing on grade level, and probably wouldn't qualify for an IEP right now even if we tried). Our issues are more behavioral.

We are seeking the evaluation/diagnosis somewhat preemptively - to better understand him, and to know what we can do at home or in private therapy settings to offer more support. Although there are probably some 504 school accommodations that could be helpful right now. DS is somewhat complex because he doesn't neatly fit into any boxes and works really hard to effectively mask at school. ADHD, anxiety, Autism (or all of the above) have been suggested, but none of them seem like the "perfect" fit. We want to work with a psych who will keep an open mind and take a wholistic approach.

Good question as we are also slated to work with her in the coming months...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with Dr. Kraper at CAAT last summer. She was good, patient and kind to our DD (6 at the time). It did take a couple months to get our full neuropsych assessment but she provided an executive summary and we moved on her initial suggestions. She also mentioned willingness to be part of our IEP committees and allowed us to have a follow up meeting about a year out to discuss our progress and provide confirmation/guidance.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback! Did you feel like her assessment was thorough and accurate? Did she really seem to "get" your child? Were the suggested interventions helpful? We are less on the learning disability path with our DS who is 7 (doing fine in school so far, testing on grade level, and probably wouldn't qualify for an IEP right now even if we tried). Our issues are more behavioral.

We are seeking the evaluation/diagnosis somewhat preemptively - to better understand him, and to know what we can do at home or in private therapy settings to offer more support. Although there are probably some 504 school accommodations that could be helpful right now. DS is somewhat complex because he doesn't neatly fit into any boxes and works really hard to effectively mask at school. ADHD, anxiety, Autism (or all of the above) have been suggested, but none of them seem like the "perfect" fit. We want to work with a psych who will keep an open mind and take a wholistic approach.

A private neuropsych is a big waste of $$ and time just for behavioral issues at that age. Spend the money on a child psychologist trained in empirical behavioral methods like PCIT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with Dr. Kraper at CAAT last summer. She was good, patient and kind to our DD (6 at the time). It did take a couple months to get our full neuropsych assessment but she provided an executive summary and we moved on her initial suggestions. She also mentioned willingness to be part of our IEP committees and allowed us to have a follow up meeting about a year out to discuss our progress and provide confirmation/guidance.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback! Did you feel like her assessment was thorough and accurate? Did she really seem to "get" your child? Were the suggested interventions helpful? We are less on the learning disability path with our DS who is 7 (doing fine in school so far, testing on grade level, and probably wouldn't qualify for an IEP right now even if we tried). Our issues are more behavioral.

We are seeking the evaluation/diagnosis somewhat preemptively - to better understand him, and to know what we can do at home or in private therapy settings to offer more support. Although there are probably some 504 school accommodations that could be helpful right now. DS is somewhat complex because he doesn't neatly fit into any boxes and works really hard to effectively mask at school. ADHD, anxiety, Autism (or all of the above) have been suggested, but none of them seem like the "perfect" fit. We want to work with a psych who will keep an open mind and take a wholistic approach.

A private neuropsych is a big waste of $$ and time just for behavioral issues at that age. Spend the money on a child psychologist trained in empirical behavioral methods like PCIT.

Nobody asked how to save money or what to do instead. OP wanted feedback on 2 practices.

OP, in CAAT, can you get Dr. Pat Ullanet? I think she is the most senior neuropsychologist for early and elementary age (other than the owner, Dr. Black).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with Dr. Kraper at CAAT last summer. She was good, patient and kind to our DD (6 at the time). It did take a couple months to get our full neuropsych assessment but she provided an executive summary and we moved on her initial suggestions. She also mentioned willingness to be part of our IEP committees and allowed us to have a follow up meeting about a year out to discuss our progress and provide confirmation/guidance.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback! Did you feel like her assessment was thorough and accurate? Did she really seem to "get" your child? Were the suggested interventions helpful? We are less on the learning disability path with our DS who is 7 (doing fine in school so far, testing on grade level, and probably wouldn't qualify for an IEP right now even if we tried). Our issues are more behavioral.

We are seeking the evaluation/diagnosis somewhat preemptively - to better understand him, and to know what we can do at home or in private therapy settings to offer more support. Although there are probably some 504 school accommodations that could be helpful right now. DS is somewhat complex because he doesn't neatly fit into any boxes and works really hard to effectively mask at school. ADHD, anxiety, Autism (or all of the above) have been suggested, but none of them seem like the "perfect" fit. We want to work with a psych who will keep an open mind and take a wholistic approach.

A private neuropsych is a big waste of $$ and time just for behavioral issues at that age. Spend the money on a child psychologist trained in empirical behavioral methods like PCIT.

Nobody asked how to save money or what to do instead. OP wanted feedback on 2 practices.

OP, in CAAT, can you get Dr. Pat Ullanet? I think she is the most senior neuropsychologist for early and elementary age (other than the owner, Dr. Black).

Yes CAAT will gladly take OP's money and provide little of value. That's for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with Dr. Kraper at CAAT last summer. She was good, patient and kind to our DD (6 at the time). It did take a couple months to get our full neuropsych assessment but she provided an executive summary and we moved on her initial suggestions. She also mentioned willingness to be part of our IEP committees and allowed us to have a follow up meeting about a year out to discuss our progress and provide confirmation/guidance.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback! Did you feel like her assessment was thorough and accurate? Did she really seem to "get" your child? Were the suggested interventions helpful? We are less on the learning disability path with our DS who is 7 (doing fine in school so far, testing on grade level, and probably wouldn't qualify for an IEP right now even if we tried). Our issues are more behavioral.

We are seeking the evaluation/diagnosis somewhat preemptively - to better understand him, and to know what we can do at home or in private therapy settings to offer more support. Although there are probably some 504 school accommodations that could be helpful right now. DS is somewhat complex because he doesn't neatly fit into any boxes and works really hard to effectively mask at school. ADHD, anxiety, Autism (or all of the above) have been suggested, but none of them seem like the "perfect" fit. We want to work with a psych who will keep an open mind and take a wholistic approach.

A private neuropsych is a big waste of $$ and time just for behavioral issues at that age. Spend the money on a child psychologist trained in empirical behavioral methods like PCIT.

Nobody asked how to save money or what to do instead. OP wanted feedback on 2 practices.

OP, in CAAT, can you get Dr. Pat Ullanet? I think she is the most senior neuropsychologist for early and elementary age (other than the owner, Dr. Black).

Yes CAAT will gladly take OP's money and provide little of value. That's for sure.

Being strapped for cash is not everyone's reality, sorry for your situation. For all that we know, OP may be flush with money and neuropsych will provide important info for future educational planning and configuring supplemental 1:1 services for the child. It's still useful in the public school system too, but in a different way. Will anyone die if neuropsych is not done? No. Does OP, based on her situation feel that it will add value? Clearly yes. It's up to her where and how to spend her resources.

[Anonymous]

Following up to see if OP can share experience with CAAT as our issues look to be similar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with Dr. Kraper at CAAT last summer. She was good, patient and kind to our DD (6 at the time). It did take a couple months to get our full neuropsych assessment but she provided an executive summary and we moved on her initial suggestions. She also mentioned willingness to be part of our IEP committees and allowed us to have a follow up meeting about a year out to discuss our progress and provide confirmation/guidance.

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback! Did you feel like her assessment was thorough and accurate? Did she really seem to "get" your child? Were the suggested interventions helpful? We are less on the learning disability path with our DS who is 7 (doing fine in school so far, testing on grade level, and probably wouldn't qualify for an IEP right now even if we tried). Our issues are more behavioral.

We are seeking the evaluation/diagnosis somewhat preemptively - to better understand him, and to know what we can do at home or in private therapy settings to offer more support. Although there are probably some 504 school accommodations that could be helpful right now. DS is somewhat complex because he doesn't neatly fit into any boxes and works really hard to effectively mask at school. ADHD, anxiety, Autism (or all of the above) have been suggested, but none of them seem like the "perfect" fit. We want to work with a psych who will keep an open mind and take a wholistic approach.

Good question as we are also slated to work with her in the coming months...

Apologies, I missed your question. I was the PP with good review of Kraper/CAAT. I do think she "got" my DD. My DD also had kind of a mixed bag of behavioral stuff, also about average in school. Her recommended interventions were comprehensive and I have mostly followed them. I do think they have been a good fit- for details we were recommended to begin medication, add pragmatic speech to the OT we were already pursuing, keep providing opportunities for social engagement and consider social groups. We have done all but the last- we found CAAT's group to be a bad timeslot for our family and very expensive. DD does lunch bunches and we have her in several more mainstream kid activities which she is loving. FWIW our school has been pretty resistant to anything but a 504 and our current 504 works pretty well, is keeping DD supported. We pursue some private tutoring to help keep up in some areas of academic challenge, namely math. Dr. Kraper also gave us some time about a year out from our assessment to reconvene, regroup on what was working and it was a good meeting. Reinforced all of the different interventions we have put in place. I do think when we re-assess in another year we will go with KKI or Children's simply for the price differential, but we were happy with our experience at CAAT and with Dr. Kraper.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any further reviews of CAAT or Dr. Kraper specifically? Would anyone recommend a different practice for a neuropsych eval, over CAAT (for a 10 year old girl)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't speak to CAAT, but we used Dr. Varia at Mindwell for our initial diagnosis of dyslexia/dyscal/dysgraph about 4 years ago. Report was OK. She didn't give us a ton of school/Assistive tech recommendations. Plus she left out a HUGE section asking for math accommodations (e.g., use of calculator). We asked for her to put something in. She was just OK. Her office was nice an open.

I had my first eval done at Mindwell and it was great (Dr. Corliss). Had the re-do with Dr. Varia and it was awful. I didn't even use it for IEP purposes. I relied more on input from teachers, case carriers and tutors to get the right IEP and it took nearly this entire school year b/c the eval sucked.

She might have been great at one time but wonder if she doesn't GAF anymore.

[Anonymous]

Also did not think the eval we did 4 years ago at Mindwell was good. We went back to a different practice this year and much happier with the report and process. I felt like Mindwell did not care to learn about my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also did not think the eval we did 4 years ago at Mindwell was good. We went back to a different practice this year and much happier with the report and process. I felt like Mindwell did not care to learn about my child.

Same feeling about Mindwell.