Assessments

A clearer picture. Practical recommendations.

Assessments should leave you with more than a score or a label. We bring together what we learn from your child, family and school, alongside earlier reports and assessment results, to understand how everything fits together in everyday life.

You come away with a clear read on strengths and support needs, and recommendations a family or school can act on.

We assess children and teenagers, as well as adults seeking autism or ADHD assessment. Assessment is a particular focus of our practice, including complex and overlapping profiles that can be harder to understand.

Families deserve a report that's genuinely useful. Ours are written to be read. We use plain language, not jargon, so the report makes sense to everyone who relies on it: you, your child's school, and your child.

Because young people often read their own reports, we write with them in mind: strengths-based, respectful, and honest without being clinical. A good report offers real insight, but just as importantly, ours set out clear, practical recommendations, not vague suggestions, so you and your child's school know exactly what to do next.

A clear understanding of how your child thinks, learns and experiences the world. Answers to the questions that brought you here. And a written report with practical recommendations for home, school and daily life.  Because life gets easier for a young person when the people around them understand them, and the places they spend their time are set up to provide the support they need.

Learning draws on a surprising number of skills all working together. Reading, writing, spelling and working with numbers each rely on several of them at once, and when school is hard it's often because one or two aren't yet in place. An assessment can pinpoint which skills your young person is finding difficult and where they need the most support. From there, we can work with their school to make sure those needs are understood and met.

An educational assessment may help clarify whether a young person meets criteria for a specific learning disorder such as dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. It can also guide classroom adjustments, learning plans at school, and future monitoring. We provide comprehensive reports that give your young person's school the information they need to support their learning.

For a young person who has been struggling, understanding why can bring real relief. Knowing there's a reason, and that support is available, often takes the place of the frustration or self-blame that can build up when school is hard.

Depending on what we're exploring, an assessment might look at:

• reading accuracy, decoding, fluency and comprehension
• phonological and phonemic awareness
• spelling and orthographic knowledge
• written expression, grammar and sentence construction
• number sense, calculation and mathematical reasoning
• verbal and nonverbal reasoning
• working memory and processing speed

We work with young people to understand whether they're autistic, ADHD, or both, help them make sense of themselves, and give families and schools a clearer understanding of what will help.

We take time to understand the young person's perspective, and their natural way of communicating, regulating and thinking. Information may come from the young person, their family, school and other professionals, with appointments tailored to the young person's communication style, interests and sensory needs.

An assessment can help replace incorrect and unhelpful explanations like “lazy”, “difficult” or “not trying” with a clearer understanding of how this young person experiences the world.

You'll also come away with a clear explanation of strengths and support needs, and recommendations aimed at removing the barriers in a young person's day and helping them understand and speak up for themselves.

Depending on what we're exploring, an assessment might look at:

• attention, executive functioning and coping patterns;
• sensory experiences and regulation needs;
• communication and authentic ways of relating to others;
  routines, flexibility and responses to change;
• emotional regulation and stress;
• learning and problem-solving;
• strengths, interests and sources of confidence;
• the fit between the young person and the expectations around them.

An assessment can bring understanding to experiences you may have carried for years, often a sense of being different, or of some things being harder than they are for others.

We work with adults exploring autism, ADHD or AuDHD, considering the ways you've learned to cope, compensate or mask across education, work, relationships and daily life.

The outcome may include a diagnosis where appropriate, a clearer understanding of your strengths and needs, and guidance for self-advocacy and everyday life.

For many adults, though, the most valuable outcome isn't on paper at all. Understanding yourself this way can be quietly profound. It often brings a real sense of relief, and a kinder, clearer way of making sense of your own story.

The assessment may explore:

• attention, focus and
• executive functioning;
• sensory experiences;
• emotional regulation and stress;
• relationships and communication;
• experiences at school, university and work;
• masking and compensatory strategies;
• the impact on daily living;
  current support and accommodation needs.

A cognitive assessment can be useful when there are questions about intellectual development, high potential or giftedness, learning needs, or a markedly uneven profile of abilities. A cognitive score is never the full picture; results are interpreted alongside developmental history, learning, behaviour, emotional wellbeing and day-to-day functioning.

A cognitive assessment may look at:

• verbal comprehension;
• visual and nonverbal problem-solving;
• working memory;
• processing speed.

Sometimes a single assessment pathway is not enough to answer the questions being asked.

A complex assessment may bring together information about development, cognition, learning, attention, autism, trauma, emotional wellbeing, adaptive functioning, sensory processing and the young person's environment.

FASD assessment requires careful consideration of developmental and health history, prenatal exposure information where available, neurodevelopmental functioning and functional impact.

We review the available information, identify what else may be needed, and advise whether multidisciplinary assessment is required.

This may be helpful when:

• previous assessments have not fully explained what people are seeing;
• several developmental, learning or mental-health questions overlap;
• a family, school or agency requires an integrated review;
• Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is being considered.