PSA on neuropsychs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

Link to the threads. I have not seen this in any of the recent neuropsych threads. These are kids who are already getting services or did so recently so the neuropsych is not the first step

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

Link to the threads. I have not seen this in any of the recent neuropsych threads. These are kids who are already getting services or did so recently so the neuropsych is not the first step

I'm not the poster you're responding to, but I have also seen people comment this in many posts of parents asking for help/first steps. It's definitely a trend on this board for some people to recommend neuropsychs in response to almost any type of question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

Link to the threads. I have not seen this in any of the recent neuropsych threads. These are kids who are already getting services or did so recently so the neuropsych is not the first step

I'm not the poster you're responding to, but I have also seen people comment this in many posts of parents asking for help/first steps. It's definitely a trend on this board for some people to recommend neuropsychs in response to almost any type of question.

If that were true it would be super easy to find examples. Yet nobody can offer any.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

Link to the threads. I have not seen this in any of the recent neuropsych threads. These are kids who are already getting services or did so recently so the neuropsych is not the first step

I'm not the poster you're responding to, but I have also seen people comment this in many posts of parents asking for help/first steps. It's definitely a trend on this board for some people to recommend neuropsychs in response to almost any type of question.

If that were true it would be super easy to find examples. Yet nobody can offer any.

PP_X here. We only did self-help type of thing and nothing else before doing the neuropsych evaluation. I did post a question on this board before we did the testing, but I will not put a link because it connects too much of the personal information. I was absolutely encouraged to do the neuropsych.

However, I want to be clear that I don’t blame anyone here, because I did other research before signing up and found overwhelmingly positive opinions. Unfortunately, starting with not being properly prepared, more than one thing went wrong in our case.

The list that I have started is genuinely meant to help others who are in a similar position. I am not trying to dissuade anyone from not pursuing the evaluation and I am not claiming that it cannot be helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn't the provider give you those forms to fill out before the appointment? Did you check your email?

We were provided a questionnaire with a multiple-choice/scale type of answers. There was an option to provide any other references, but the context and importance were not explained. Since we haven’t done any therapy in the past, we left this field empty.

[Anonymous]

^ PP_X

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

Link to the threads. I have not seen this in any of the recent neuropsych threads. These are kids who are already getting services or did so recently so the neuropsych is not the first step

I'm not the poster you're responding to, but I have also seen people comment this in many posts of parents asking for help/first steps. It's definitely a trend on this board for some people to recommend neuropsychs in response to almost any type of question.

If that were true it would be super easy to find examples. Yet nobody can offer any.

PP_X here. We only did self-help type of thing and nothing else before doing the neuropsych evaluation. I did post a question on this board before we did the testing, but I will not put a link because it connects too much of the personal information. I was absolutely encouraged to do the neuropsych.

However, I want to be clear that I don’t blame anyone here, because I did other research before signing up and found overwhelmingly positive opinions. Unfortunately, starting with not being properly prepared, more than one thing went wrong in our case.

The list that I have started is genuinely meant to help others who are in a similar position. I am not trying to dissuade anyone from not pursuing the evaluation and I am not claiming that it cannot be helpful.

But if there aren't any recent threads that people can point to why are folks derailing the threads that actually exist which are not about kids that aren't receiving any services?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

I don’t think it is cart before horse necessarily. ADHD is one of the few diagnoses that can be diagnosed by a variety of health professionals - pediatrician, psychiatrist, NP, PA, etc. however, it is also a diagnosis that can be mistaken for other issues or can be comorbid - along with depression, anxiety, and a variety of specific learning disorders like dyslexia, dyscalculia, MERLD and other language processing disorders. For kids who have comorbid disorders, particularly SLD or language processing, it’s really only the neuropsych that’s going to be able to be able to diagnose comorbidities with data to support the diagnosis. Neither a pediatrician nor a psychiatrist will really be able to diagnose dyslexia along with the ADHD.

Also some accommodation processes still demand neuropsych level testing (wrongly & illegally IMO - but hard to fight it.) also, some schools will really refuse to recognize the comorbid LD diagnoses w/o neuropsych level data. Again, wrong & illegal, but hard to fight.

As a parent who has had to choose diagnostic pathways less expensive than neuropsych, I get why people don’t like the really privileged neuropsych first advice. But, I’m also very aware that more data would have been better in our situation to fully flesh out the parameters of the ADHD and other disorders. Also, as a parent who has a kid who was suspected to have ADHD but who really has an underlying physical disorder causing attention and cognitive problems, I can see clearly that the neuropsych can only describe the cognitive deficits. It can’t diagnose or even point to the specific medical issue causing ADHD-like symptoms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

I don’t think it is cart before horse necessarily. ADHD is one of the few diagnoses that can be diagnosed by a variety of health professionals - pediatrician, psychiatrist, NP, PA, etc. however, it is also a diagnosis that can be mistaken for other issues or can be comorbid - along with depression, anxiety, and a variety of specific learning disorders like dyslexia, dyscalculia, MERLD and other language processing disorders. For kids who have comorbid disorders, particularly SLD or language processing, it’s really only the neuropsych that’s going to be able to be able to diagnose comorbidities with data to support the diagnosis. Neither a pediatrician nor a psychiatrist will really be able to diagnose dyslexia along with the ADHD.

Also some accommodation processes still demand neuropsych level testing (wrongly & illegally IMO - but hard to fight it.) also, some schools will really refuse to recognize the comorbid LD diagnoses w/o neuropsych level data. Again, wrong & illegal, but hard to fight.

As a parent who has had to choose diagnostic pathways less expensive than neuropsych, I get why people don’t like the really privileged neuropsych first advice. But, I’m also very aware that more data would have been better in our situation to fully flesh out the parameters of the ADHD and other disorders. Also, as a parent who has a kid who was suspected to have ADHD but who really has an underlying physical disorder causing attention and cognitive problems, I can see clearly that the neuropsych can only describe the cognitive deficits. It can’t diagnose or even point to the specific medical issue causing ADHD-like symptoms.

You don’t need a neuropsych to diagnose dyslexia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

I don’t think it is cart before horse necessarily. ADHD is one of the few diagnoses that can be diagnosed by a variety of health professionals - pediatrician, psychiatrist, NP, PA, etc. however, it is also a diagnosis that can be mistaken for other issues or can be comorbid - along with depression, anxiety, and a variety of specific learning disorders like dyslexia, dyscalculia, MERLD and other language processing disorders. For kids who have comorbid disorders, particularly SLD or language processing, it’s really only the neuropsych that’s going to be able to be able to diagnose comorbidities with data to support the diagnosis. Neither a pediatrician nor a psychiatrist will really be able to diagnose dyslexia along with the ADHD.

Also some accommodation processes still demand neuropsych level testing (wrongly & illegally IMO - but hard to fight it.) also, some schools will really refuse to recognize the comorbid LD diagnoses w/o neuropsych level data. Again, wrong & illegal, but hard to fight.

As a parent who has had to choose diagnostic pathways less expensive than neuropsych, I get why people don’t like the really privileged neuropsych first advice. But, I’m also very aware that more data would have been better in our situation to fully flesh out the parameters of the ADHD and other disorders. Also, as a parent who has a kid who was suspected to have ADHD but who really has an underlying physical disorder causing attention and cognitive problems, I can see clearly that the neuropsych can only describe the cognitive deficits. It can’t diagnose or even point to the specific medical issue causing ADHD-like symptoms.

You don’t need a neuropsych to diagnose dyslexia.

Try telling that to various standardized test administrators

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

Link to the threads. I have not seen this in any of the recent neuropsych threads. These are kids who are already getting services or did so recently so the neuropsych is not the first step

I'm not the poster you're responding to, but I have also seen people comment this in many posts of parents asking for help/first steps. It's definitely a trend on this board for some people to recommend neuropsychs in response to almost any type of question.

If that were true it would be super easy to find examples. Yet nobody can offer any.

PP_X here. We only did self-help type of thing and nothing else before doing the neuropsych evaluation. I did post a question on this board before we did the testing, but I will not put a link because it connects too much of the personal information. I was absolutely encouraged to do the neuropsych.

However, I want to be clear that I don’t blame anyone here, because I did other research before signing up and found overwhelmingly positive opinions. Unfortunately, starting with not being properly prepared, more than one thing went wrong in our case.

The list that I have started is genuinely meant to help others who are in a similar position. I am not trying to dissuade anyone from not pursuing the evaluation and I am not claiming that it cannot be helpful.

But if there aren't any recent threads that people can point to why are folks derailing the threads that actually exist which are not about kids that aren't receiving any services?

I am not claiming that there are no similar recent threads. I really wouldn’t know, just like I wouldn’t know an answer to your current question since I am not one of those posters. Try using date and time stamp related to the post you are referring to, and maybe PP who posted that will reply.

~PP_X

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neuropsych evals can be very helpful in the situations you described, but there is also a tendency on this board for people to recommend neuropsych evaluation as a first step when there are other options that may be faster, cheaper, and effective. For example, if a parent suspects their child may have mild to moderate anxiety or ADHD, an intake appointment with a child psychologist or psychiatrist may be fully effective in diagnosing, treating, and getting school accommodations.

+1 billion

Which thread suggests getting a neuropsych as the first step? The ones I see pertain to kids who are currently getting services/therapy or were until very recently. I think y'all have created a straw man here just to entertain yourselves.

PLENTY of threads have an OP that says "i think my kid has ADHD" and someone is like "get a neuropsych!!" which is cart before the horse territory.

Link to the threads. I have not seen this in any of the recent neuropsych threads. These are kids who are already getting services or did so recently so the neuropsych is not the first step

I'm not the poster you're responding to, but I have also seen people comment this in many posts of parents asking for help/first steps. It's definitely a trend on this board for some people to recommend neuropsychs in response to almost any type of question.

If that were true it would be super easy to find examples. Yet nobody can offer any.

PP_X here. We only did self-help type of thing and nothing else before doing the neuropsych evaluation. I did post a question on this board before we did the testing, but I will not put a link because it connects too much of the personal information. I was absolutely encouraged to do the neuropsych.

However, I want to be clear that I don’t blame anyone here, because I did other research before signing up and found overwhelmingly positive opinions. Unfortunately, starting with not being properly prepared, more than one thing went wrong in our case.

The list that I have started is genuinely meant to help others who are in a similar position. I am not trying to dissuade anyone from not pursuing the evaluation and I am not claiming that it cannot be helpful.

But if there aren't any recent threads that people can point to why are folks derailing the threads that actually exist which are not about kids that aren't receiving any services?

I am not claiming that there are no similar recent threads. I really wouldn’t know, just like I wouldn’t know an answer to your current question since I am not one of those posters. Try using date and time stamp related to the post you are referring to, and maybe PP who posted that will reply.

~PP_X

I responded directly to them and they just insisted the threads are there and this is always the advice people give. I call bs

[Anonymous]

Regardless of whether or not posters here say to get a neuropysch-to actually get one, you typically need a referral (like from the ped) and then you have a consultation with the provider to see if they are going to do it. That has been my experience 3 times now (neuropysch, pyschoeducational, now new neuro).

I didn't just call and say, schedule me a neuropysch. And the provider won't do it if they don't feel it's appropriate at that time-I had actually consulted for one 2 years ago, and the provider didn't want to do it at that time, but advised it for the time we are at now (entering middle school).

So, it's something a parent can look into, doesn't mean it's the time to do it, but you can get a consult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of whether or not posters here say to get a neuropysch-to actually get one, you typically need a referral (like from the ped) and then you have a consultation with the provider to see if they are going to do it. That has been my experience 3 times now (neuropysch, pyschoeducational, now new neuro).

I didn't just call and say, schedule me a neuropysch. And the provider won't do it if they don't feel it's appropriate at that time-I had actually consulted for one 2 years ago, and the provider didn't want to do it at that time, but advised it for the time we are at now (entering middle school).

So, it's something a parent can look into, doesn't mean it's the time to do it, but you can get a consult.

We have done one neuropsych. I am not sure what you mean by a referral. That didn't seem to be necessary when we did ours though we did tell them we were advised to get the evaluation by a psychologist. We did not have a consultation with the evaluating psychologist before committing to the evaluation, just a short convo with a coordinator type person. Not sure if their process would be different for someone who didn't volunteer that they were told to get the evaluation. This was with one of the major practices in the DMV that doesn't take insurance. We had a good experience and I am generally a proponent of neuropsychs (not for everyone obviously) but I think it would be great if they did do consultations first. The intake with the coordinator left a lot to be desired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of whether or not posters here say to get a neuropysch-to actually get one, you typically need a referral (like from the ped) and then you have a consultation with the provider to see if they are going to do it. That has been my experience 3 times now (neuropysch, pyschoeducational, now new neuro).

I didn't just call and say, schedule me a neuropysch. And the provider won't do it if they don't feel it's appropriate at that time-I had actually consulted for one 2 years ago, and the provider didn't want to do it at that time, but advised it for the time we are at now (entering middle school).

So, it's something a parent can look into, doesn't mean it's the time to do it, but you can get a consult.

Sounds like a good and logical order of things. However, this might differ depending on the practice or patient. We were not ask for a referral, and had only a brief conversation on why we wanted to schedule one.

~ PP_X