Assessment For
Kids & Teens
Looking for answers regarding your child’s developmental, education, or psychological well-being? Our psychologists and psychometricians at Mind Works specialized in conducting assessments that will provide your family with a diagnosis, best treatment outcomes, academic strengths and weaknesses, and suggested educational accommodations for your child.
1. Homework & Discovery
At the start of the assessment, we’ll gather essential information to better understand your child’s history and your concerns as a parent. First, we identify all the important stakeholders – such as the patient, parents, significant other, healthcare providers, referral consultant, and any other professionals that may have insight. You and your child will be provided with a parent questionnaire to fill out prior to the interview, and parents or caregivers can submit their own narrative or timeline.
2. Testing
Our tests are not one-size-fits all. Providers pick and choose a specific set of assessments and tests depending on your child’s needs and areas of concern. These commonly include cognitive tests, such as IQ and achievement tests, aimed to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a child’s thinking. We may also use emotional, behavioral, and executive functioning tests, testing for common mental health disorders, risky behaviors, thought disorders, and a range of issues revolving around memory, self-regulation, and problem-solving.
3. Analyze & Plan of Action
Once testing is complete, the psychometrist and psychologist will begin the process of scoring test data and analyzing all historical and interview information to understand your child and provide a summary of all findings and diagnoses. This report is written from a developmental perspective and will provide a psychosocial history, as well as a review of all relevant history that may be influencing learning, personality, and change.
4. Recommendations
As part of the written report, our team will provide a recommendations section that is customized and tailored to the immediate and long-term needs of your child. These recommendations can address a wide range of solutions, including therapy, specific interventions, academic accommodations, social development training, substance abuse treatment, executive function skill building, vocational development, medication, or medical referrals for neurology, occupational therapy, or speech therapy.
5. Execute Plan
Once our report is finalized and ready for presentation, we’ll set up a face-to-face meeting or video teleconference call with all available stakeholders to provide our feedback regarding testing and recommendations. If you have already agreed to therapy prior to testing, your child’s therapist will be invited to this call as well. Together, we’ll collaborate on a plan of action and promptly guide you toward the next action steps, whether that’s beginning therapy, providing referrals, prescribing medication, or other interventions.
Begin Your Child’s Success Story
Ready to get started or have more questions for our team before moving forward? Give us a call or fill out a simple form online to start the journey toward your child’s thriving future.
How Assessments Help Your Child Thrive at Home, School, and Play
While you may already have a good idea of some of your child’s areas of weakness or noticed symptoms that point to common behavioral, emotional, or developmental disabilities, testing can help confirm your concerns or identify new factors to consider. Here are some ways screening and assessments set your child up for success.
Accurate Diagnosis
There are many benefits to receiving an official diagnosis, including insurance coverage, access to resources, legal protection, and more.
Progress Monitoring
Assessments provide a baseline, allowing your child’s care team to monitor and track their progress over time.
Early Intervention
Testing allows parents and other stakeholders to detect issues early, which can lead to better outcomes in the long run.
Accommodation Plans
Professional testing assists in the development of IEPs or 504 plans for educational accommodation plans.
Parental Understanding
It’s relieving to no longer parent from a place of uncertainty. Testing allows parents to better understand their child’s needs.
Personalized Learning
Developmental, educational, and psychological assessments allow providers to effectively tailor their care based on results.
How Assessments Help Your Child Thrive at Home, School, and Play
While you may already have a good idea of some of your child’s areas of weakness or noticed symptoms that point to common behavioral, emotional, or developmental disabilities, testing can help confirm your concerns or identify new factors to consider. Here are some ways screening and assessments set your child up for success.
Accurate Diagnosis
There are many benefits to receiving an official diagnosis, including insurance coverage, access to resources, legal protection, and more.
Progress Monitoring
Assessments provide a baseline, allowing your child’s care team to monitor and track their progress over time.
Early Intervention
Testing allows parents and other stakeholders to detect issues early, which can lead to better outcomes in the long run.
Accommodation Plans
Professional testing assists in the development of IEPs or 504 plans for educational accommodation plans.
Parental Understanding
It’s relieving to no longer parent from a place of uncertainty. Testing allows parents to better understand their child’s needs.
Personalized Learning
Developmental, educational, and psychological assessments allow providers to effectively tailor their care based on results.
Why Mind Works?
Specialized Expertise
Comprehensive Treatment Options
Collaborative Approach
Evidence-Based Care
Frequently Asked Questions:
A Mind Works developmental evaluation comprehensively assesses all aspects of early development to identify challenges such as sensory processing issues, speech and motor delays, or social and emotional difficulties. It’s designed to pinpoint why a child may struggle with communication or behave inappropriately in stimulating environments, or why they may interact with peers in atypical ways.
These assessments are designed for children ages 2-12 and are conducted by a pediatric psychologist. They include testing cognitive, speech and language, motor, adaptive, and emotional and behavioral functions, as well as a specialized assessment of play and social skills.
The goal is to understand your child’s challenges, define their strengths and weaknesses, and guide you toward the appropriate interventions.
Our educational evaluations for individuals from ages 5-17 are designed to create a comprehensive profile of learning strengths and weaknesses using standard measures. We aim to understand and optimize how your child or teen learns, processes information, and performs tasks relative to their peers.
Assessments cover key domains like intellectual functioning, memory, processing skills, and executive functions such as planning and organization. In addition to academic skills like reading, math, and writing, we observe task approach and performance patterns to identify potential learning disabilities.
Tailoring tests to each individual ensures a personalized learning profile, while also considering emotional well-being and social interactions.
Mind Works provides psychological evaluations for individuals ages 5 to adult. Psychological evaluations assess difficulties in the behavioral, emotional and social realms of a child’s life. These evaluations are essential opportunities to examine your child’s strengths and weaknesses — and, more specifically, to gather the information required to accurately diagnose and effectively treat your child.
Other tests evaluate whether clients are experiencing emotional disorders such as anxiety or depression. The underlying cause of a person’s problems is not always clear.
Psychological tests and assessments allow a psychologist to understand the nature of the problem, and to figure out the best way to go about addressing it.
What tests your child is administered as part of psychological testing is ultimately decided by their psychologist. It is a highly tailored process, with the provider picking a specific set of assessments and tests that fit the child’s background and areas of concern. These may include:
- Cognitive Testing: IQ and assessment testing, which can include protocols such as WAIS, WISC, WJ-III, SB-3, WIAT, and WRAT.
- Emotional Testing: Emotional functioning assessments for depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorders, and more, following protocols such as MMPI, MACI, MCMI, BDI, and Rorschach.
- Behavioral Testing: Tests that evaluate substance abuse, trauma and abuse, self-harm, and harmful behaviors, including protocols such as Achenbach, BASC, and Vanderbilt.
- Executive Functioning Testing: These include evaluations for EF skill development, following protocols such as BRIEF, WCST, D-KEFS, and EFSD.
Initial test findings are given to a Mind Works provider (Therapist or Prescriber) and referral sources as soon as possible so treatment planning can begin. The referral process is a bit like the tango in that it requires partners to work in coordination to optimize the outcome. Done well, a Mind Works internal referral provides important and timely specialist recommendations for patient care without undue burden for parents or patients.
Success Stories
“Highly recommend Mind Works. I am a clinician in Illinois and needed to find a clinic in Texas that could provide services to my client that was moving. This is no easy feat to do across the United States. Mind Works was fabulous to work with from the very beginning. Coordination of care was 5 stars and my “previous” client is very happy with their new counselor. Thank you very much for going above and beyond during this difficult time so many other counseling offices are facing. I appreciate all the help and coordination you offered my client!”
“I have known the owners for over 8 years and have taken a family member to Mind Works. Therefore, I can speak of them both personally and professionally. There truly is no better place for this service, especially for children and young adults. On the personal level, I know how much they truly care about everyone they meet. On a professional level, the entire staff is a reflection of the dedication to helping others and competence that gets results that the owners exude. During the incredibly trying time of this pandemic and the fear and anxiety it has caused many people, we are incredibly blessed to have Mind Works available to support.”
“The front desk staff is kind and courteous and helped me find the right therapist for my child. When I met my therapist she was kind and explained the process to me. I love that she included me in the play therapy process and helped me understand how to help my child. Thankful for the therapists at Mind Works!”
“Mindworks is the leader in child centered play therapy and collaborative care in San Antonio and surrounding areas. Their focus is solely on the mental health of children and teenagers. Each clinician at all four locations is seasoned, knowledgeable, experienced, and capable. Parents trust that their child is going to get the treatment and services they need and deserve.
I thoroughly enjoyed working as a clinician at Mindworks. The support and leadership is consistent and outstanding. Unlike any other job that I have had, leadership and clinicians work together to cultivate an awesome work environment.”
Uncover golden nuggets of parenting advice from Mind Works experts! Whether your children are toddlers or teens, discover expert tips that can transform your parenting approach and bolster your child’s care.
Help Your Child Soar to New Heights
A world of possibility awaits your child, and we’re so excited for the opportunity to help them work through roadblocks, improve their skills, and unleash their potential. Get in touch with our team and start your child down a happier, healthier path today!
