Everything you need to know about a Psychological evaluation
General Reasons for a Psychological Evaluation
The purpose of psychological evaluations is to pinpoint what is happening in someone's life that may be inhibiting their ability to perform, think, behave, feel, or achieve in more appropriate or constructive way either at home, school, or the work place. There are many types of psychological evaluations that are used for personal insight, performance in school or college, or for workplace performance. The psychologist will administer and interpret the results and be able to determine what, if any, diagnoses, disorder, or disabilities you may or may not have; as well as indicate your relative strengths and weaknesses. This information is used to provide recommendations, interventions, and treatment options for the client.
Our Psychological Evaluation is completed by highly skilled clinically psychologists, educational psychologists, licensed psychologists, and/or certified school psychologists. Our comprehensive evaluations will address the reason for referral and identify what, if any, issues are creating obstacles and determine the best remediation and interventions to address it in school, at home, and in the community.
If you or a family member have been referred or considering a psychological evaluation, please read some of the information below. It may help guide you in the best direction. Psychological evaluations are designed to help you. Think of it as going to your primary physician/doctor when you are not feeling well. You tell the doctor how you are not feeling well. They may do some formal or informal testing (take your temperature, ask you some questions, take a blood test, etc.), and then determine what your diagnosis is (e.g. flu) and then provide treatment (e.g. cough medicine). A psychological evaluation is very similar in that they are addressing cognitive, academic, social, emotional, behavioral, adaptive, personality, and mental health issues that creating road blocks for you in your life.
A psychological evaluation helps determine what the underlying issue is for the client and how best to resolve it. For example, if a student is struggling in math class. Is it due to a learning disability in math or dyscalculia? Perhaps it could be ADD - ADHD or Executive Functioning weaknesses; or there could be environmental conditions with family, friends, or colleagues that are causing significant stress and having an impact on memory? Psychological tests and assessments allow a psychologist to understand the nature of the problem, and to figure out the best way to go about addressing it.
Specific Reasons for a Psychological Evaluation
Potential Benefits from a Psychological Evaluation
What steps are involved in a Psychological Evaluation?
Psychological Tests and Assessments
Psychologists pick and choose tests that are individualized and appropriate for each person based on the reason for referral, symptoms, and other important information (vision, hearing, language, etc.) Both tests and assessments help a psychologist determine strengths, weaknesses, including diagnoses and recommendations to treat or remediate it. Our examiners only use the most updated versions of tests, with the highest reliability and validity rates with appropriately normed samples.
Testing can involve the use of formal tests (also referred to as standardized or norm-referenced tests) and informal tests (also referred to as criterion reference tests). Formal tests compare your results to other individuals (in terms of age, grade level, etc...) and indicate how you performed average, below average, or above average when compared to others. Examples of Formal tests include the following:
Informal tests indicate how well you have mastered the content or knowledge on the test. There are also information gathering forms, questionnaires, checklists, and input that is based on your opinion or opinions of others, which is extremely valuable as well. Together this information helps paint a picture of obstacles that you are encountering.
What to Expect in a Psychological Evaluation
The psychologist will try to collect as much pertinent information possible through various techniques (e.g. review of records, interviews, observations, testing and assessments) and then help paint a picture of how and possibly why you are struggling and how best to remediate it. You can not study or prepare for psychological evaluations. The best way is to just be yourself, try your best, and be open and honest. The information you receive can help you in ways never imagined!
How to Interpret Psychological-Educational Test Scores
It's important that client's do not interpret test scores by themselves because it can be easily misinterpreted on many levels. Therefore, it is very important that you contact your doctor or specialist who completed the evaluation for appropriate interpretation in your specific case. However, from a mathematical and statistical point of view, we hope this general information can provide some assistance:
Raw Scores: is the amount of points earned for a subtest and can not be meaningfully compared. Example John has a raw score of 35. This means the student earned 35 points on a subtest.
Standard Scores: Relates a student’s performance to a normative reference group and allows one to compare scores within a test…Standard scores indicate how far above or below the average (the mean) an individual score falls, using a common scale, such as one with an average of 100. Standard scores also take variance into account, or the degree to which scores typically will deviate from the average score. It can be used to compared individuals from different grades or age groups because all scores are converted to the same numerical scale. For example, each test has different ranges of scores and can label them differently. Usually, but not always, one reliable factor is that most tests have a mean of 100 with a standard deviation of 15; suggesting that (85-100 and 100-115 are average)
Scaled Scores: Relates a student’s performance to a normative reference group and allows one to compare scores within a subtest…Performance on each subtest which reflects specific skills results in a scaled score…For example, Scaled Scores can have range from 1-19 with a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3. 7-13 (average range) like the WISC-V
Percentile Scores: Should be used when needed to compare student’s performance to others using a hypothetical situation involving 100 students. It can be provided for each standard score to indicate a student’s standing relative to other students at the same age or grade level. For example, Percentile ranks range from 1 to 99 with 50 as the median. A student with a 15th percentile means that the student scored at or better than 15% of students his same age (or perform lower than 85% of students same age).
Stanine Scores: Should be used when a broad gauge of achievement is needed, but are useless for reflecting precise information. Score that results from a conversation of a grade-based or age-based standard score to a 9-point scale. For example, Stanines are normalized scores ranging from 1 to 9, with a mean of 5 and standard deviation of 2. The lowest (1-3), middle (4-6), and highest (7-9).
Z-Scores: Is a measure of the number of standard deviation units away from the test mean. The test mean is 0.0 and the standard deviation is 1.0. A positive sign means above the mean and a negative sign means below the mean. For example, knowing that someone’s weight is 150 pounds might be good information, but if you want to compare it to the “average” person’s weight, looking at a vast table of data can be overwhelming (especially if some weights are recorded in kilograms). A z-score can tell you where that person’s weight is compared to the average population’s mean weight
T-Scores: The T-Score was designed to eliminate confusion of z-scores and provide a consistent mean and standard deviation; the T-score transformation takes raw scores and changes them to equal interval units, where the mean is 50, and the standard deviation is 10…It’s another type of standardized score, where 50 is average; Example, used to summarize student performance, pretest performance subtracted from the posttest performance, identify a student’s real position in the distribution.
Grade Equivalent: The score is more reflective of accuracy level than the grade level of task difficulty that this student can perform. In other words, the student has obtained the same score (not skills) as an average student of that grade. Expresses the student’s performance developmentally in terms of a corresponding grade level to the nearest tenth, which correspond to academic months. For example, if Sally obtains a grade equivalent of 3.6 on a reading comprehension test, this means that the student obtained the same score as the typical student in the sixth month of third grade. Sally may or may not have acquired the same skills as the typical third grader. Another way of looking at it is that it means that the student answered correctly a high percentage of the items on a third grade test…the same percentage of items that an average sixth-grade student answered correctly on the third grade test. It does not reflect their ability.
Age Equivalent: Express the student’s performance developmentally in terms of a corresponding age level. For example, if Sally obtains a age equivalent of 10.6 on a reading comprehension test, this means that the student obtained the same score as the typical 10 year, 6 month old peer. Sally may or may not have acquired the same skills as a 10.6 year old. Another way of looking at it is that it means that the student answered correctly a high percentage of the items that most 10.6 year old’s did…the same percentage of items that an average 10.6 year old student answered correctly. It does not reflect their ability.
Standard Deviation: Is the standardized difference among scores around the mean of the distribution. In others words, the extent to which scores are dispersed on a test.
Confidence Interval: A student’s performance can vary any given day, the confidence interval is the hypothetical range of scores predicted if your child were given this test 100 times. A 95% confidence interval means there is a 95% likelihood that your child would score in the given range if administered the test 100 times.
Normal Curve Equivalents: The NCE converts scores into a scale interpretable as percentiles based on equal intervals. It ranges from 1-99, with a mean of 50. It helps us describe performance with the interpretability of percentile ranks and the power of standard scores, which allows a more sophisticated analysis.
Relative Proficiency Index (RPI): An RPI of 71/90 is interpreted to mean that when others at the examinee’s age or grade show 90% success on “reading” tasks, the examinee is predicted to show only 71% success on the same tasks.
The purpose of psychological evaluations is to pinpoint what is happening in someone's life that may be inhibiting their ability to perform, think, behave, feel, or achieve in more appropriate or constructive way either at home, school, or the work place. There are many types of psychological evaluations that are used for personal insight, performance in school or college, or for workplace performance. The psychologist will administer and interpret the results and be able to determine what, if any, diagnoses, disorder, or disabilities you may or may not have; as well as indicate your relative strengths and weaknesses. This information is used to provide recommendations, interventions, and treatment options for the client.
Our Psychological Evaluation is completed by highly skilled clinically psychologists, educational psychologists, licensed psychologists, and/or certified school psychologists. Our comprehensive evaluations will address the reason for referral and identify what, if any, issues are creating obstacles and determine the best remediation and interventions to address it in school, at home, and in the community.
If you or a family member have been referred or considering a psychological evaluation, please read some of the information below. It may help guide you in the best direction. Psychological evaluations are designed to help you. Think of it as going to your primary physician/doctor when you are not feeling well. You tell the doctor how you are not feeling well. They may do some formal or informal testing (take your temperature, ask you some questions, take a blood test, etc.), and then determine what your diagnosis is (e.g. flu) and then provide treatment (e.g. cough medicine). A psychological evaluation is very similar in that they are addressing cognitive, academic, social, emotional, behavioral, adaptive, personality, and mental health issues that creating road blocks for you in your life.
A psychological evaluation helps determine what the underlying issue is for the client and how best to resolve it. For example, if a student is struggling in math class. Is it due to a learning disability in math or dyscalculia? Perhaps it could be ADD - ADHD or Executive Functioning weaknesses; or there could be environmental conditions with family, friends, or colleagues that are causing significant stress and having an impact on memory? Psychological tests and assessments allow a psychologist to understand the nature of the problem, and to figure out the best way to go about addressing it.
Specific Reasons for a Psychological Evaluation
- School Difficulty
- Work Problems
- Relationship Issues
- Emotional Difficulty
- Behavior Problems
- Diagnosis or Disability Determination
- Mental Health Concern
- Educational Disability
- Learning Disability
- IEP / 504 Plan
- Special Education
- Gifted Education
- Private School Admissions
- Accommodations in Classroom and on State and Standardized Tests (e.g. SAT / ACT)
- Dyslexia
- Academic and Educational Testing
- ADHD / ADD
- Autism
- Executive Functioning
- Auditory Processing
- Cognitive - Intelligence
- Memory and Processing Speed
- Verbal / Nonverbal Intelligence
- Vocational / Career
- Transition Planning
- Auditory Processing
Potential Benefits from a Psychological Evaluation
- Reveal or provide clarification on disorder/diagnosis contributing to current symptoms
- Gain Access to special education or gifted education services
- Receive an IEP
- Receive a 504 Plan
- Customized accommodations, modifications, and instructional interventions
- Personalized IEP goals/objectives to address your child's weaknesses in school
- Receive related services, such as speech/language, occupational, & physical therapy
- Gain access to accommodations at work
- Accommodations in College Courses and Exams
- Accommodations on Standardized Test (SAT, GRE, MCAT, LSAT, ACT, Bar Exam, etc.)
- Accommodations on State Test, Certification Test, Licensure Test
- Reveal what motivates you
- Determine career / degree best suited for you
- Find out how to learn better and use coping strategies at work or college
What steps are involved in a Psychological Evaluation?
- Schedule an appointment: We know how important it is to find someone that can be trusted, highly skilled, and compassionate to address your questions and concerns in a helpful way. We won't let you down. Simply call or email us, and we will be here to assist you in the best way possible!
- A review of the presenting problem(s): Let us know why you want an evaluation, what questions you would like to have answered, symptoms you are having, and how it is affecting you in you daily life. If you are not sure, we'll guide you through an easy process that will get to the root of the issue which will help us create a strong foundation so we know what are the best assessments to use in your situation.
- A psychological interview: We'll go into more detail about your concerns, symptoms, and other important information that was brought up during the review of records and social history. We will review any previous records and conduct a social history about your background that can provide important information (personal/childhood history, family history, relationships, substance use, medical conditions, developmental issues, education, and recent experiences that brought you here, etc.).
- Observation (depending on age of client and reason for referral): Observations during testing session (for adults) or at school (for children).
- Psychological testing related to the concerns and symptoms: You'll be administered various tests that are a minimum of at least one hour or longer depending on several factors. However, prepare to spend hours during a testing session depending on your reason for referral.
- A psychological report/summary is written and reviewed with you: You'll receive a psychological report with the social history, interview, observation, and results of the psychological testing.
- Recommendations, interventions, and treatment options are discussed: The report will also have recommendations related to your reason for referral and guide you in the most appropriate way to assist you.
Psychological Tests and Assessments
Psychologists pick and choose tests that are individualized and appropriate for each person based on the reason for referral, symptoms, and other important information (vision, hearing, language, etc.) Both tests and assessments help a psychologist determine strengths, weaknesses, including diagnoses and recommendations to treat or remediate it. Our examiners only use the most updated versions of tests, with the highest reliability and validity rates with appropriately normed samples.
Testing can involve the use of formal tests (also referred to as standardized or norm-referenced tests) and informal tests (also referred to as criterion reference tests). Formal tests compare your results to other individuals (in terms of age, grade level, etc...) and indicate how you performed average, below average, or above average when compared to others. Examples of Formal tests include the following:
- Neuropsychological/Neurodevelopmental Tests
- Intelligence - Cognitive Tests / I.Q. Tests
- Achievement - Educational Tests (Reading, Writing, Math, etc.)
- Social, Emotional, Behavioral, & Adaptive Tests / Mental Health
- Personality & Motivation Tests
- Visual-Motor Integration Tests
- Speech/Language Tests
- Fine-Gross Motor Tests
Informal tests indicate how well you have mastered the content or knowledge on the test. There are also information gathering forms, questionnaires, checklists, and input that is based on your opinion or opinions of others, which is extremely valuable as well. Together this information helps paint a picture of obstacles that you are encountering.
- Inventories (some not all)
- Checklists
- Surveys
- Open-ended questions
What to Expect in a Psychological Evaluation
The psychologist will try to collect as much pertinent information possible through various techniques (e.g. review of records, interviews, observations, testing and assessments) and then help paint a picture of how and possibly why you are struggling and how best to remediate it. You can not study or prepare for psychological evaluations. The best way is to just be yourself, try your best, and be open and honest. The information you receive can help you in ways never imagined!
How to Interpret Psychological-Educational Test Scores
It's important that client's do not interpret test scores by themselves because it can be easily misinterpreted on many levels. Therefore, it is very important that you contact your doctor or specialist who completed the evaluation for appropriate interpretation in your specific case. However, from a mathematical and statistical point of view, we hope this general information can provide some assistance:
Raw Scores: is the amount of points earned for a subtest and can not be meaningfully compared. Example John has a raw score of 35. This means the student earned 35 points on a subtest.
Standard Scores: Relates a student’s performance to a normative reference group and allows one to compare scores within a test…Standard scores indicate how far above or below the average (the mean) an individual score falls, using a common scale, such as one with an average of 100. Standard scores also take variance into account, or the degree to which scores typically will deviate from the average score. It can be used to compared individuals from different grades or age groups because all scores are converted to the same numerical scale. For example, each test has different ranges of scores and can label them differently. Usually, but not always, one reliable factor is that most tests have a mean of 100 with a standard deviation of 15; suggesting that (85-100 and 100-115 are average)
Scaled Scores: Relates a student’s performance to a normative reference group and allows one to compare scores within a subtest…Performance on each subtest which reflects specific skills results in a scaled score…For example, Scaled Scores can have range from 1-19 with a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3. 7-13 (average range) like the WISC-V
Percentile Scores: Should be used when needed to compare student’s performance to others using a hypothetical situation involving 100 students. It can be provided for each standard score to indicate a student’s standing relative to other students at the same age or grade level. For example, Percentile ranks range from 1 to 99 with 50 as the median. A student with a 15th percentile means that the student scored at or better than 15% of students his same age (or perform lower than 85% of students same age).
Stanine Scores: Should be used when a broad gauge of achievement is needed, but are useless for reflecting precise information. Score that results from a conversation of a grade-based or age-based standard score to a 9-point scale. For example, Stanines are normalized scores ranging from 1 to 9, with a mean of 5 and standard deviation of 2. The lowest (1-3), middle (4-6), and highest (7-9).
Z-Scores: Is a measure of the number of standard deviation units away from the test mean. The test mean is 0.0 and the standard deviation is 1.0. A positive sign means above the mean and a negative sign means below the mean. For example, knowing that someone’s weight is 150 pounds might be good information, but if you want to compare it to the “average” person’s weight, looking at a vast table of data can be overwhelming (especially if some weights are recorded in kilograms). A z-score can tell you where that person’s weight is compared to the average population’s mean weight
T-Scores: The T-Score was designed to eliminate confusion of z-scores and provide a consistent mean and standard deviation; the T-score transformation takes raw scores and changes them to equal interval units, where the mean is 50, and the standard deviation is 10…It’s another type of standardized score, where 50 is average; Example, used to summarize student performance, pretest performance subtracted from the posttest performance, identify a student’s real position in the distribution.
Grade Equivalent: The score is more reflective of accuracy level than the grade level of task difficulty that this student can perform. In other words, the student has obtained the same score (not skills) as an average student of that grade. Expresses the student’s performance developmentally in terms of a corresponding grade level to the nearest tenth, which correspond to academic months. For example, if Sally obtains a grade equivalent of 3.6 on a reading comprehension test, this means that the student obtained the same score as the typical student in the sixth month of third grade. Sally may or may not have acquired the same skills as the typical third grader. Another way of looking at it is that it means that the student answered correctly a high percentage of the items on a third grade test…the same percentage of items that an average sixth-grade student answered correctly on the third grade test. It does not reflect their ability.
Age Equivalent: Express the student’s performance developmentally in terms of a corresponding age level. For example, if Sally obtains a age equivalent of 10.6 on a reading comprehension test, this means that the student obtained the same score as the typical 10 year, 6 month old peer. Sally may or may not have acquired the same skills as a 10.6 year old. Another way of looking at it is that it means that the student answered correctly a high percentage of the items that most 10.6 year old’s did…the same percentage of items that an average 10.6 year old student answered correctly. It does not reflect their ability.
Standard Deviation: Is the standardized difference among scores around the mean of the distribution. In others words, the extent to which scores are dispersed on a test.
Confidence Interval: A student’s performance can vary any given day, the confidence interval is the hypothetical range of scores predicted if your child were given this test 100 times. A 95% confidence interval means there is a 95% likelihood that your child would score in the given range if administered the test 100 times.
Normal Curve Equivalents: The NCE converts scores into a scale interpretable as percentiles based on equal intervals. It ranges from 1-99, with a mean of 50. It helps us describe performance with the interpretability of percentile ranks and the power of standard scores, which allows a more sophisticated analysis.
Relative Proficiency Index (RPI): An RPI of 71/90 is interpreted to mean that when others at the examinee’s age or grade show 90% success on “reading” tasks, the examinee is predicted to show only 71% success on the same tasks.
