Neurospych Testing Recs- Who did you use and did you love them?
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Anonymous
that’s still an extremely narrow and static perspective to make projections or detailed recommendations about services. |
Anonymous
| We used mindwell and were happy. https://mindwell.us/ |
Anonymous
It worked great for us. I can only speak to our experience. Evaluator really "got" our child and recommendations are super helpful. It's true, our particular evaluator did not have a crystal ball. So we will likely be seeking another eval in 2-3 years. We hope to get it from the same person. |
Anonymous
I mean you don't even think my child's diagnosis is real, even though you've never met my child. Of course you think these alternatives are fine. You think it would be fine if my child didn't get a diagnosis. But that's not what's best for my family. I am grateful our insurance actually pays a full 80% of the cost, and I wish more families had this benefit. And as someone who has had to deal with getting out of network claims approved through my insurance, I absolutely understand why certain providers don't take insurance. It's a massive waste of providers' time. I would much rather use providers that can focus their resources on serving my child, not paying someone to spend hours on the phone for insurance reps to gaslight them. |
Anonymous
I didn’t say it wasn’t real … |
Anonymous
So you're not the poster that said "developmental issues are not hidden and if they are, they are not actually developmental issues."? Sorry it's hard to keep track of which AH I am responding to. |
Anonymous
You yourself said that your child is broadly on level in kindergarten - maybe your child doesn't "require" very specific interventions in order to function at school. "May benefit" might fit. You seem to be generalizing your child's evaluation to an entire practice. I have two child who have been tested for different conditions - one with significant needs and one with mild ADHD. For the first, I have had evaluations say that he needs very specific supports in order to function. For the second, I had many "may benefit" type of recommendations, which absolutely fit. Recommendations are individualized to your child. It sounds like you wanted strongly worded recommendations to convince the school. An evaluation is a reflection of what the professional thinks based on their assessment - not on what the parent wants. |
Anonymous
Megan Doyle. |
Anonymous
And when the school never flags anything and doesn’t offer any services or testing because your child is on grade level but you know that your child’s development is atypical? You can cast wide ranging aspersions on systems you think aren’t working efficiently but for those of us without options in the school system this testing provided essential answers: late diagnosed autism (age 11 in a girl) + dyslexia and dysgraphia. Lots was missed during the pandemic homeschooling. Anymore to get services at MCPS you need to be failing or having massive behavioral problems. |
Anonymous
I am speaking about my specific experience with evaluation and my perception of it, answering directly the topic question. I also put my child's diagnosis up front, it's a complex profile with some strengths and some distinct weaknesses, he's been in 20+ hours of early interventions weekly since age 2.5. IEP is a completely moot point for us, because he'll be going to a specialized private school, but for people who go to KKI because it takes insurance and who have to put their child in a public school due to not being able to afford private - they need to know that they may not receive what they need for IEP advocacy. Maybe some do, I don't know. In my experience, the formulation of needed supports sounded too soft. YMMV. |
Anonymous
I have a 12th and a 9th grader, both have had 4 neuropsych evaluations so far and I can even count how many interventions, specialists etc. I think of the neuropsych as more of a checkup on the results measures now. The diagnoses have shifted over time, but they now match what our experienced developmental pediatrician suggested when they were both in preschool. She explained that sometimes you can only be certain of a diagnosis once you see how a child responds to an intervention. I’ve come to realize that the people whose perspective was the most helpful were the practitioners who have seen lots of kids develop over a longer period of time. They were able to provide helpful context and interpretation about the data I had and the likely trajectory for them developmentally along with the best interventions at that point in time. For us those were an experienced developmental pediatrician, a first grade teacher, a special education teacher, a former special education teacher turned ABA therapist, an Orton Gillingham Fellow, and a parent who had adult neurodiverse children similar to ours who had successfully launched. In each case I would, somewhat desperately, ask what should I be doing more of and less of now and in the near future. How do I know when to change how we’re supporting? Once we had enough trust they could share their perspective and I understood that their predictions and suggestions might not be perfect. I think the breakdown in trust between parents/ schools (for many legitimate reasons) is a huge barrier to developing this sort of relationship with teachers now. But I will forever be grateful to the people Who took risks to coach me through parenting my kids and continue to do so. To answer OPs question- Laurie Smith in Vienna celebrates with us when my daughter repeats evaluations with her. She excitedly shows her how far she’s come from the kindergartner who first walked into her office. She is amazing for dyslexia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. Anna at Paving Pathways ABA is an amazing professional and partner for complicated kids. She helped me understand that although I wanted to differentiate between ADHD/ Anxiety/ Autism, that the most critical thing to do was to support my child behaviorally. And then she taught us how. Our developmental pediatrician has retired. Dr Dan Shapiro has a similar energy and perspective so I attend his classes when possible. |
Anonymous
Thank you so much for taking the time to share this reflection. I think this is exactly what I needed to hear, and it's very valuable coming from someone with 2 older kids. Wishing you all the best on this journey and meaningful successes to your children as they go forward. |
Anonymous
+100. Some evaluators may be more likely to use the mandatory language - I’m guessing its the ones who are private pay. But a good professional would likely not say “require” except in very clear-cut cases. My other concern is neuropsychologists giving clinically poor recommendations because they are not in fact specialists in your child or the underlying condition. For example, recommending approaches to anxiety that make it worse (over accomodating). And a lot of their recommendations are canned based on what they assume are limitations especially wrt autism. |
Anonymous
Our private eval used a mix of "should receive", "should include", "would benefit from", "requires" and "needs". |
Anonymous
If you can, please share the name of the practice, please? |