Anyone regret getting child a neuropsych. eval.?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone regretted getting a neuropsychiatric evaluation done on their child? If so, why?

[Anonymous]

No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

Huh. Like how? I already knew all do these going in with my kid with significant challenges so I honestly found them useless. Like no utility served at all. And we already had an ADHD diagnosis and did all the therapy. I think it completely depends on your kid and the issues. Most parents of kids with issues to the degree of mine have also said they’re pretty redundant.

[Anonymous]

Not at all. The one we did for our second kid was, we thought, because we had become rich and frivolous, and could afford to throw money out of the window. Turns out she has mild autism and severe anxiety, and after reading her report, she feels relief at understanding herself so much better. So that was 5K well spent, actually.

The two we did for our oldest, who is now an adult, were absolutely necessary, given his severe ADHD, autism, anxiety and learning disabilities - he desperately needed accommodations in school and still has accommodations in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

Huh. Like how? I already knew all do these going in with my kid with significant challenges so I honestly found them useless. Like no utility served at all. And we already had an ADHD diagnosis and did all the therapy. I think it completely depends on your kid and the issues. Most parents of kids with issues to the degree of mine have also said they’re pretty redundant.

What a lie. My adult and teen kids both have diagnoses and we've been in the special needs sphere for 15+ years. Not a single parent ever said the neuropsych was redundant. In fact, most said they wished they could have done it sooner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

Huh. Like how? I already knew all do these going in with my kid with significant challenges so I honestly found them useless. Like no utility served at all. And we already had an ADHD diagnosis and did all the therapy. I think it completely depends on your kid and the issues. Most parents of kids with issues to the degree of mine have also said they’re pretty redundant.

He had just finished 2nd grade and was unreliable with self-reports. What was hard, why it was hard, what he didn't try hard at because he didn't like, that type of thing. He would have said he disliked any mediation. But in addition to confirming dyslexia (which I suspected and therefore wasn't surprised about the diagnosis), it told us he would learn best with audio tools. Very helpful. He had some predillection to math, so I wasn't afraid to push him in that area or advocate for him when his teachers wanted him to be in the lowest group, like he was in reading. Even knowing his rough IQ helped me set expectations for myself. Knowing his starting point for attention was helpful in knowing how much remediation he could do. Knowing he had a sweet spot for how challenging things could be before tapping out. I found it interesting and helpful to see inside his brain. It wasn't the diagnosis that was helpful. It was all the data within the tests.

[Anonymous]

If you've never had one done, you really do learn a lot about your kid and gain a lot of valuable insight. Unfortunately, in order to keep getting some supports and accommodations you have to do repeat ones every few years. The later ones are sometimes not so valuable since you already know a lot of the information that they uncover and might not feel like it's worth the cost.

It's important to find somebody who does them well. I think some providers give you a lot of boilerplate recommendations and suggestions. Others give you much more thorough and tailored reports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful. [/quote

+1

Extremely helpful to understand them and parse the particular ways my kids learn better or have challenges.

[Anonymous]

What recommendations do you have a place to do the evaluation?

[Anonymous]

Neuropsych typically is short for neuropsychological evaluation. You can also get a different use of evaluation from a psychiatrist that won't look as much at the educational pieces I think.

We did a neurodevelopmental (same as a neuropsych but not with all the tests because many of the tests are not valid for kids under 6 or 7 I think) evaluation for our kid. No regrets. It was what was recommended to us to accurately learn if our child had autism. We haven't followed all of the recommendations in it and some have not been needed but the ones we did follow have been so useful. And just having the diagnosis has been really helpful. Not financially, but for getting a 504 plan at school from an early age and for understanding our child and her strengths and how her brain works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

Why can’t you get one? I’m planning to get them for my NT kids.

[Anonymous]

I had one done on myself and I’m NT. It was helpful to know what I could do to improve.

[Anonymous]

We did it with high hopes and paid over 5K. Evaluator barely had any explanation for the issues we came in for, and provided suggestions that made no sense at all. It felt like they made up their mind even before seeing DC, then just kept trying to justify their opinion. Very strange experience.

[Anonymous]

I think for me yes it was hard. We did one for my daughter in 4th grade after being bullied into it by our private. Quite frankly the school was asking a lot in our grade to get tested. Our grade it turns out, was heavily affected by COVID. They were quite behind due to being masked up at a young age and as well looking at their teacher masked up, therefore not seeing the words and sounds formed or even hearing properly with face covering. Writing was difficult also with teacher hurrying them along. The writing process was not taught well. Some parents had their kids tested and others did not. One came out with dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalcula and fled to public. Our daughter was deemed mildly dyslexic with slower processing. We too fled to a charter due to teachers not willing to work with our child without a diagnosis, and curriculum challenges with a horrible math teacher who decided she preferred the children who didn’t require a bit “extra” (despite only 15 kids in class)because nobody wished to remediate they wanted to keep going full steam without acknowledging Covid deficits. Bringing you up to present in a public charter with our daughter having an IEP and accommodations. We have had to fight for a particular teacher to understand dyslexia because our dyslexia teacher is too timid to intervene with the “teacher’s classroom methods.Test scores not improving after full year. We hired an advocate who was great at our last ARD meeting…..but we now regret leaving our smaller private who may have decided to work with us better than present school with all the “supports” because they’re a public!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

Why can’t you get one? I’m planning to get them for my NT kids.

I guess we technically can but at $5k, I never seriously considered it.