ADHD Treatment Philadelphia

Often, particularly for people with exceptional adaptive cognitive skills, learning disabilities or attentional problems do not become clear until a person begins secondary education and the adaptive skills that got them through their previous schooling is insufficient in a more academically rigorous environment.

Psychoeducational testing as an adult can not only help a person understand a problem that they have likely struggled with for a long time but also help them develop strategies to make their work more efficient and effective.

Psychoeducational evaluations are also required in order to receive special services and accommodations for most colleges as well as for most standardized tests. These accommodations are most often given for people with documented learning disabilities, ADHD or other cognitive problems that require accommodations such as extended time.

Often people enter college hoping that their future career inspiration will strike, but as they take class after class looking to find their passion, it never does. Other times, people will start out on one path, determined to make a career of it but as they continue, they realize they do like it or do not have the skill set necessary for it. In these situations, as well as others, a career planning assessment can often be helpful.

The Process:

Career planning assessments are the most variable assessment we offer because it is based on your needs, rather than based on stringent diagnostic criteria or educational dictates. Most often, it is helpful to have a broad understanding of your cognitive strengths and weaknesses, your interests, your work style and your general personality style to help match all of those with potential careers. Therefore, most career assessments include:

• Cognitive Testing
• Interest Inventories
• Personality Inventories
• Record reviews
• Career-focused questionnaires
• Interview

All of this testing usually takes between 4-6 hours and is done over the course of 2-3 sessions. It then takes 2 weeks to score, interpret and write the report, which will be presented in a 1-2 hour feedback session.

During the feedback session, a full report, as well as a feedback report, will be reviewed and given to you. The full report will include all of the data gathered, including a complete history as well as a discussion of the results and recommendations. The feedback summary is a shorter, more approachable document that discusses the highlights- your strengths and weakness, your interests and personality styles as they pertain to work and career, your best-fit career paths as well as our recommendations.

Diagnostic/ Treatment Planning Assessment

Sometimes over the course of therapy, it becomes clear that a more exact understanding of diagnosis and/or personality organization is necessary to facilitate the most change. Other times, people seek a diagnosis in for their own, or they want a full assessment of their emotional functioning to map the best course of treatment. This is when diagnostic and treatment planning evaluations can be extremely valuable- saving time and money in the long run by getting an unambiguous picture with specific steps forward that otherwise may take months or even years with therapy alone.

The Process:

Usually, the first step of a diagnostic assessment is the initial consultation during which a plan for what tests will be performed and what the referral question is determined. From there, an idea for how long the testing will take and how much it will cost can be made. Most diagnostic assessments entail a variety of types of tests such as:

• A full clinical interview
• Cognitive testing
• Personality inventories
• Emotional functioning
• Social functioning inventories
• Projective measures of personality and psychological functioning
• Consultation with other providers and loved ones

Depending on the scope of testing it can take between 6-10 hours of in-person testing which is completed over the course of 3-4 sessions. It then takes 2 weeks to score, interpret and write up the results of the testing. These results are then presented in a 1.5-2 hour long feedback session.

Feedback:

During the feedback session, 2 reports will be presented: A full clinical report and a feedback report.

The full clinical report includes all the data that was collected over the course of testing, including a comprehensive history, the results of all the tests, a clinical discussion of the results, a summary, diagnosis and specific recommendations for treatment and ways to address concerns brought up during testing.

The feedback report includes just the highlights of that clinical report- the summary, diagnosis, and recommendations; written in clear, direct and easy to understand language.

The feedback session is a time for you to both hear the impressions and conclusions of the examiner as well as for you to be able to ask questions. It is our goal to have every client have a full and clear understanding of the issues they are facing, their strengths and weaknesses and the way they interplay as well as a clear direction forward to address each of their concerns with specific and individualized recommendations.

Our services include psychological evaluation and consultation to aid in the determination of:

• Fitness for Duty/Return to Work
• Disability Claims
• Worker’s Compensation

People seek out a comprehensive ADHD assessment for a variety of reasons, including:

To apply for accommodations at work or school such as extra time or a private room for tests
To get concrete confirmation of a suspected diagnosis
To gain a better understanding of the various neurocognitive strengths and weaknesses that may be impacting performance
To get a more definitive diagnosis when multiple confounding factors such as comorbid anxiety, OCD, depression or addiction are making a precise diagnosis difficult through interview and inventories alone.

The Process:

A comprehensive ADHD diagnosis usually consists of 6-8 hours of in-person testing completed over the course of 2-3 sessions. The testing includes a variety of tests including:
A full clinical interview
Cognitive testing (which often take the form of puzzles or games)
Emotional Functioning inventories (true/false type questionnaires)
Timed reading/academic testing
Symptom questionnaires
Record review
Collateral data collection

All of this data is then collected, scored, interpreted and written up into a report, which is presented during a feedback session about 2 weeks after the final testing session.

The Feedback Session:

The feedback session usually takes 1.5-2 hours and is a time when the results of your evaluation, as well as the conclusions, diagnosis, and recommendations, are shared with you and anyone else that you would like to be present. This session is also an excellent time for you to ask questions and for you and your examiner to discuss the next steps that you can take. During the feedback session you will be given two (sometimes 3) written reports:

The full clinical report: this is a lengthy report that discusses everything- the history you shared, the review of records, the tests we completed, the results of those tests, a discussion of those results, a summary and diagnosis that discusses the overall conclusions as well as the specific recommendations we are making for you

A feedback report: this is a shorter, more approachable report that includes the highlights: your strengths and weaknesses, your diagnosis and an understanding of how your diagnosis and strengths and weaknesses play into each other to create the difficulties you are having, and the detailed and specific recommendations we are making for you.

A school report (if indicated): this is a redacted version of a full clinical report in which some, clinically insignificant or superfluous, information is removed so that you can apply for accommodations for a disability, without sharing sensitive clinical details with non-clinical school personnel.

Many people with learning disabilities are diagnosed early on in their schooling, but there are some people, particularly highly intelligent, socially responsive and adaptive students who manage to compensate for their disabilities throughout early education and even high school. Often, though, when they get to college or graduate school their workload becomes too heavy and the material too complicated so that their previously effective compensatory strategies and hard work are not enough anymore and they need more specific assistance and accommodations.

Learning disability assessment can come in 2 forms:

A comprehensive evaluation, which is necessary for the first diagnosis
re-evaluation which is needed every 6 years after an initial assessment to continue to receive accommodations.

Initial diagnosis evaluations, i.e., a comprehensive assessment, need to evaluate the many other disorders and issues that can present with academic difficulty such as depression, anxiety, inadequate instruction, ADHD, trauma, traumatic brain injury (just to name a few). Therefore, this type of assessment includes a thorough record review, cognitive and achievement testing, personality and emotional testing, a clinical interview as well as the gathering of collateral information.

Re-evaluations are shorter and less time intensive. They still require the standard cognitive and achievement testing to establish if the disability is still present, but the interview, record review, personality testing and collateral interview are significantly shortened because they have already been conducted.

The Process:

Regardless of whether you need an initial, comprehensive evaluation or a re-evaluation, the process is mostly the same.
Evaluations take between 6-10 hours (closer to 6 for a re-evaluation; 10 for a more complicated initial assessment) and are done over the course of 3-4 sessions. They will include:
Clinical interview
Cognitive testing (which often feel like puzzles or games)
Achievement testing (which feel more like school type tests)
Emotional/Personality testing (usually true/false inventories)
Record review (a thorough review of all school and testing records)
Collateral Information interview (an interview with a parent or other loved one)
After testing it then takes 2 weeks to score, interpret and write up the results, which will be presented in a feedback session.

The Feedback Session:

The feedback session usually takes 1.5-2 hours and is a time when the results of your evaluation, as well as the conclusions, diagnosis, and recommendations, are shared with you and anyone else that you would like to have present. This is also an excellent time for you to ask questions and for you and your examiner to discuss the next steps that you can take. During the feedback session you will be given two (sometimes 3) written reports:

The full clinical report: this is a lengthy report that discusses everything- the history you shared, the review of records, the tests we completed, the results of those tests, a discussion of those results, a summary and diagnosis that discusses the overall conclusions as well as the specific recommendations we are making for you

A feedback report: this is a shorter, more approachable report that includes the highlights: your strengths and weaknesses, your diagnosis and an understanding of how your diagnosis and strengths and weaknesses play into each other to create the difficulties you are having and the detailed and specific recommendations we are making for you.

A school report (if indicated): this is a redacted version of a full clinical report in which some, clinically insignificant or superfluous, information will be removed so that accommodations can be sought for a disability, but sensitive clinical information is not shared with non-clinical school personnel.

Sometimes over the course of therapy, it becomes clear that a more exact understanding of diagnosis and/or personality organization is necessary to facilitate the most change. Other times, people seek a diagnosis in for their own, or they want a full assessment of their emotional functioning to map the best course of treatment. This is when diagnostic and treatment planning evaluations can be extremely valuable- saving time and money in the long run by getting an unambiguous picture with specific steps forward that otherwise may take months or even years with therapy alone.

The Process:

Usually, the first step of a diagnostic assessment is the initial consultation during which a plan for what tests will be performed and what the referral question is determined. From there, an idea for how long the testing will take and how much it will cost can be made. Most diagnostic assessments entail a variety of types of tests such as:

• A full clinical interview
• Cognitive testing
• Personality inventories
• Emotional functioning
• Social functioning inventories
• Projective measures of personality and psychological functioning
• Consultation with other providers and loved ones

Depending on the scope of testing it can take between 6-10 hours of in-person testing which is completed over the course of 3-4 sessions. It then takes 2 weeks to score, interpret and write up the results of the testing. These results are then presented in a 1.5-2 hour long feedback session.

Feedback:

During the feedback session, 2 reports will be presented: A full clinical report and a feedback report.
The full clinical report includes all the data that was collected over the course of testing, including a comprehensive history, the results of all the tests, a clinical discussion of the results, a summary, diagnosis and specific recommendations for treatment and ways to address concerns brought up during testing.
The feedback report includes just the highlights of that clinical report- the summary, diagnosis, and recommendations; written in clear, direct and easy to understand language.

The feedback session is a time for you to both hear the impressions and conclusions of the examiner as well as for you to be able to ask questions. It is our goal to have every client have a full and clear understanding of the issues they are facing, their strengths and weaknesses and the way they interplay as well as a clear direction forward to address each of their concerns with specific and individualized recommendations.