Westchester Comprehensive Psychological Evaluations

What is a school neuropsychological evaluation?

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A school neuropsychological evaluation is an assessment that covers all important areas within neuropsychology with an emphasis on how these strengths or weaknesses may impact the student within the school setting.  As a result, testing focuses on how the student performed a task rather than relying on the score alone.  This specificity assists with predicting what these skills might look like in the classroom, what tasks may be easier or harder for him/her, and how teachers/providers may best intervene to support these students. Whether a diagnosis is reached or not, this information allows for the creation of specific and usable recommendations for the classroom setting.

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Each assessment is tailored to the specific needs of the child but may cover the following areas:

• Clinical Interviews – with parents, teachers, student and any providers who may have important information to share

• Basic Sensorimotor Functions: Sensory functions encompass our ability to process visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and olfactory information. Dysfunctions in any single sensory system can have a dramatic effect on a child’s learning capabilities and behavioral regulation. Motor functions encompass both fine motor skills (e.g., picking up or manipulating small objects, holding a pencil correctly, buttoning a button) and gross motor skills (e.g., walking in a balanced and coordinated manner, running, jumping, riding a bike).

• Visuospatial Skills: Visual-spatial processes include visual-spatial perception and visual spatial reasoning.

• Auditory/Phonological Skills: We live in a language-rich society where verbal skills are often valued above nonverbal skills. The building blocks of language are basic sound discrimination and auditory processing skills.

• Learning and Memory: Memory is a significant contributor to the learning process. Memory is comprised of multiple interactive systems and is measures across multiple time periods (e.g., immediate, short-term memory, long-term). Each of the types of memory may be tested using different modalities; for example, using either verbal information, visual information, or both.

• Executive Functions: Executive functioning can be conceptualized into two broad areas: cognitive and behavioral/emotional control. The cognitive aspects of executive functioning include concept generation and problem solving. The behavioral/emotional aspects of executive functioning relate to the inhibitory controls of behavior (e.g., impulsivity, regulation of emotional tone, etc.).

• Attention: Attention is a complex and multifaceted construct used when an individual must focus on certain stimuli for information processing. To regulate thinking and complete tasks of daily living such as schoolwork, it is necessary to be able to attend to both auditory and visual stimuli in the environment. Attention can be viewed as the foundation of all other higher-order processing.

• Working Memory: Working memory is a memory system that underpins our capacity to keep things in mind when performing complex tasks. Information placed in working memory may come from sensory memory, short-term memory, or from long-term memory. The key component of a working memory task is the requirement for active manipulation of the information. Working memory has been shown to be a required cognitive process for components of reading, mathematics, and writing achievement in children.

• Speed, Fluency, and Efficiency of Processing: Processing speed and fluency are interpreted with the context of performance accuracy.

• Language Abilities: We all live in a highly verbal society; therefore, language skills are necessary for successful academic and behavioral functioning in school-aged children. The language domain is categorized into Oral Expression and Listening Comprehension (receptive language).

• Reading Achievement: Reading is essential for a child’s success in school and beyond the walls of the classroom. Learning to read is a sequential process that involves decoding skills, comprehension, and fluency.

• Written Language Achievement: Writing is important because it improves communication skills, creative thinking, and creativity. Writing is necessary for both school and work. Writing also helps the writer express ideas, beliefs, and personality.

• Mathematics Achievement: Math is important in life because it is used to perform many different daily tasks, such as telling time, reading an odometer, counting change and to make strategic decisions in one's work life. Similarly, nearly every profession uses some form of math.

• Social-Emotional Functioning and Adaptive Behaviors: We live in a social world made up of a variety of social relationships. Social-emotional functioning relates to an individual’s mental health. Adaptive behaviors are a collection of practical skills that are learned to assist in everyday functions.