Divorce cases

During divorce litigation someone may request that a psychological evaluation is performed on one or more persons. A common referral question to be answered by this request is “What is the person’s present psychological status, and how does it effect daily living?”. To complete this type of evaluation the following is usually done: clinical interview, multiple personality tests, a brief cognitive ability tests, and multiple rating scales to address substance abuse and child abuse potential. A psychological evaluation for this situation does not address the question of most appropriate setting for custody of a child.

adhd

A diagnosis of ADHD can be made by a medical professional or a mental health professional such as a psychologist. Typically a psychologist will have the following features in an assessment for an attentional disorder such as ADHD.

• Interview for developmental, social, and academic/occupational history information.

• Assessment of cognitive ability and achievement/learning skills

• Multiple behavior rating scales completed by person, parent and/or other collateral sources (i.e. teacher, spouse etc)

• Personality testing when person is 14 years of age or older.

Child Custody cases

During divorce litigation someone may request that a child custody evaluation is performed. The referral question that is answered is “What is in the best interest of the child(ren)?” because the purpose is to assess the best psychological interests of the child. To respond to that question a number of factors need to be addressed:

• of each person in a parenting role: psychological status relative to its impact on the child and ability to parent, parenting capacity and attachment status, and his/her functional ability to meet the needs of the child(ren),

• and the developmental needs and attachment status of the child(ren) relative to each person in a parenting role.

learning disability

Although a student in elementary and secondary school can be assessed for a learning disability by the public school personnel, a private clinical psychologist can also provide information regarding a learning disability by performing the same type of assessment. The standard components of a learning disability evaluation are: cognitive ability test, test of achievement (reading, math and written language), and evaluation of receptive and expressive language skills.

disability

There may be times that a psychological evaluation is required to meet the essential criteria for state and federal agencies in regards to a diagnosis of intellectual disability. Such an evaluation consists of a review of pertinent records, a clinical interview, cognitive ability testing, and an evaluation of adaptive behavior.

general psychological status

There are a variety of other reasons for a psychological evaluation that are specific to the person’s needs. A clinical psychologist such as Dr. Adams can perform the evaluation to answer a specific referral question as long as it is in his area of competency.