Gives You a Clear Picture
Psychological testing is very helpful because it gives you a clear and accurate picture of what’s going on. Diagnostics in mental health is not an exact science. It’s not like we have a blood test that we can run in a lab and say, “Yep! You have ADHD!” or “Yep! Your kid has autism!”
Narrow Down The Issue
A lot of the time symptoms look very different depending on the child and the environment, and also the gender and age. When we do psychological testing we can weed out what’s going on. We do this because we don’t want to treat you for ADHD when what you really have going on is high-functioning autism. Plus, this kind of testing gives you a clear picture of how your brain works, and it gives you a great deal of information about why you interact with the world the way that you do.
Helps Develop a Treatment Plan
It also helps your therapist develop a better treatment plan because then we know exactly what’s going on. Without testing it’s like if you went to the doctor with a particular set of symptoms that looked like diabetes so they treated you for diabetes. But if they had done blood work they would have found that although your symptoms fit diabetes you actually had a thyroid problem. Diabetes medication won’t fix a thyroid issue!
Psychological testing is both an art and a science. It’s an intensive process but the payoff is huge because you know exactly what to look for.
A Deeper Picture
The other day I saw a kiddo whose mom thought he had ADHD and it turned out that she was right. But our testing showed that he also may have a learning disorder specific to written expression, which is something that she did not know was happening. This is important information to have because although he’s young now, as he gets higher up in school written expression will become more and more important. Now she knows to be on the lookout for him having difficulties with written expression. It could be a matter that can be addressed by an occupational therapist, or it might be a problem with him getting the words out. Either way, we have a much clearer picture of why he may have these struggles. Upon seeing the testing results, the mom realized that yes, she has noticed that he is extremely resistant to writing, but it had never really been on her radar before.
Testing gives us an idea of the whole picture, including issues you may not have noticed.
Find Root Cause of Feelings of Depression
Sometimes women or girls will come in feeling anxious or depressed, but when we dig into the matter with psychological testing we find out that they actually have ADHD, and the anxiety and depression actually stem directly from behaviors caused by ADHD. Like treating diabetes when you have a thyroid problem, it doesn’t do as much good to help you with your depressive thoughts if your real problem is that you struggle with executive functioning skills stemming from ADHD.
This is why I love doing psychological testing. I love helping people figure out why their brains work the way they do!