Screening assessments assess the possibility of a problem but doesn’t diagnose or determine symptom severity.

The advantages of screening assessments include early identification of individuals who may be at high risk for a certain disorder, are less expensive, time-limited, and narrow in scope.

Many undergo a screening assessment to be better informed of what type of comprehensive assessment could be helpful before committing to a more intensive evaluation. For example, if you suspect you may have ADHD, a screening could determine the likelihood of this diagnosis. This is helpful because the screening can tell you if a more comprehensive evaluation is warranted, potentially saving you time, money, and resources. In other words, screenings help determine if investing in a comprehensive assessment is a wise choice.

TPG offers the following screening assessments:

• Autism
• ADHD
• Bipolar/Mood Disorders
• Anxiety Disorders
• Trauma 
• Memory and Learning
• Personality and Cognitive Changes
• Substance Abuse

All screening assessments include an interview, formal assessment of mental status, relevant screening measures, and a formal feedback session with a brief written report stating notable findings that may warrant further follow up. *No diagnoses will be given.

Comprehensive assessments go beyond a clinical screening and will provide a conclusive diagnosis. This type of testing focuses on the individual's functioning across various areas and will inform treatment planning or next steps. Comprehensive assessments identify psychological issues and indicate symptom severity.

Testing results are integrative and based on multiple sources of information such as clinical interviews, empirical testing data, behavioral observations, clinical records review, and other supplemental information. It might also consist of screening measures that are used in conjunction with more comprehensive psychological tests to provide a broader context for understanding the results. Essentially, the testing psychologist will speak to you (and others in your life if necessary and with your permission), you’ll complete a variety of questionnaires, and perform various tasks.

Testing might assess various cognitive, emotional, and behavioral areas that will help answer the referral question. This could include:

• Relevant personal history
• Memory and learning
• Language
• Visual and verbal abilities
• Executive functioning (i.e., ability to plan, time management, impulsivity, etc)
• Personality traits
• Academic performance
• Capacity for self-care (i.e., performing daily tasks such as personal hygiene, cooking, etc.)

TPG offers the following comprehensive psychological evaluations:

• Diagnostic clarification evaluations
• ADHD testing
• IQ testing for adults
• IQ testing/gifted evaluations for children
• Pre-surgical evaluations
• Pre-adoption evaluations
• Egg Donor and surrogate evaluations
• Career testing

All comprehensive assessments include an interview, formal assessment of mental status, relevant assessment measures and tests, and a formal feedback session with an integrative written report stating notable findings and recommendations. *Diagnoses may be given depending on the findings. It is important to note no diagnoses can be guaranteed and payment is still considered due regardless of any diagnosis that may or may not be assigned as a professional service and comprehensive report will still be given.

This type of assessment helps you receive targeted treatment from your mental health provider. At The Psychology Group, all first therapy appointments include the administration of standard questionnaires to assess symptoms of common mental health disorders like anxiety and depression. The difference between a therapy intake and a therapeutic assessment, is that results from therapeutic assessment will be more detailed and possibly uncover deeper issues that can be focused on in therapy. Many clients come to therapy wanting to learn more about themselves and underlying issues that may be contributing to the current difficulties in their life. Therapeutic assessments will help.

The tests included in a therapeutic assessment will be more comprehensive and individualized than the standard symptom questionnaires used in intakes. These tests will examine your personality traits and relationship patterns, and your unique struggles. This approach is recommended for any individual wanting to pursue individual therapy that is informed by standardized assessment data. One common benefit of this approach is that it “jump starts” therapy by identifying the root cause of issues immediately. In standard therapy, it may take several sessions to identify the underlying causes of issues.

How it works: 

1. Schedule a complimentary 15-minute (or less) phone consultation with a TPG psychologist who will listen to your concerns and present an initial recommendation for testing.
2. Your first appointment will include a comprehensive interview. At the end of this appointment, you and your psychologist will collaboratively agree upon a plan for testing, including what your goals are, what questions will be answered, what tests will be included, and what these tests will assess/measure.
3. Therapeutic assessment may span over several sessions. Over this time, you will also have several talk typical therapy appointments and develop a therapeutic relationship with your psychologist.
4. Upon completion of testing, your therapist will provide you with a comprehensive report that explains the findings of your evaluation in easy-to-understand, plain language. You will go over the results with your therapist and you can utilize a therapy session (or several) to process the results.
5. This report becomes a lasting, powerful tool for you to bring with you to psychiatry appointments and future therapists. It helps prevent you from having to “start over” with a new therapist should you move or take your treatment in a different direction.

For example, you may specifically wonder why you procrastinate on common, everyday tasks and why this impacts your relationships. In this case, your psychologist may consider several diagnoses, including anxiety, trauma, and ADHD, as well as cognitively-based challenges such as slow processing speed or executive dysfunction. See explanations for each below.

• Anxiety: Many folks procrastinate due to anxiety. If you have social anxiety, you may stress about making phone calls related to appointments or social plans. If you are a perfectionist, you might procrastinate tasks because you worry you will not do them perfectly. You might also put them off to double and triple check that report for your boss, even though you know you know it’s probably good enough.
• Trauma: Perhaps you grew up in a household where you were punished severely when you didn’t get your chores done, or they were done incorrectly. This may lead you to struggle to regulate your emotions related to chores as an adult.
• ADHD: Folks with ADHD often have difficulty understanding how long something will take them to do. This leads to a general difficulty with planning the day. For example, if you have a dentist appointment at 2pm, you may feel that you can’t do anything else that day so that you will be on time for your appointment.

Yes, all three of these disorders can be diagnosed through a clinical interview and/or several therapy sessions. Testing will help us get to the answer faster, so that we can get started on making changes rather than spending time figuring it out together. Cognitive testing, however, is the only way to determine the next two possibilities:

• Slow processing speed: Have you ever noticed that despite getting good grades in school and performing well at work, your tasks seem to take you longer than other folks? Slow processing speed may be to blame. It’s important to note that this is not a formal learning disability, but it can greatly impact your efficiency.
• Executive dysfunction: Executive functioning plays an important role in the ability to plan future tasks, estimate how long it may take, and switch efficiently from one task to another. It plays an important role in ADHD, but is present in other disorders as well.