Assessment, unpacked.
Writing on autism, ADHD, giftedness, intellectual disability, and the assessments that open doors. From the clinicians who do the work every day.
What a comprehensive autism assessment actually looks like: a first guide for parents
Most families hear the word and picture a sterile exam room. Here is what a real evaluation covers, what your child actually does in the room, and what you walk away holding.
Getting started
How Regional Center funding actually works
A plain-language breakdown of who qualifies, what the funding actually covers, and why the Regional Center pays for services instead of writing you a check.
Twice-exceptional: when a child is gifted and also struggling
The kids schools miss most. Their strengths mask their challenges, and their challenges mask their strengths. Combined testing reveals what's really going on.
The ADI-R, translated: what parents are actually being asked
Walking through the questions we ask parents during the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised, what we're listening for in your answers, and why honesty matters more than polish.
Latest
Not talking at 2: late talker, or autism?
Everyone has a reason for you: he's a boy, his cousin was late, give it six months. What to watch besides words, and a three-second move to try at bath time tonight.
Autism
Adaptive functioning, explained for parents
The everyday half of an evaluation, and the one most parents never hear about. What it measures, why bright kids get missed, and the score that decides who qualifies.
AssessmentADHD or anxiety? Telling them apart in kids
The classroom can't tell a wandering mind from a worried one; the report card looks identical. The tells that separate ADHD from anxiety, and why it's often both.
ADHD & GiftednessIEP vs. 504 plan: which one does your child need?
One plan changes your child's classroom conditions. The other changes the teaching itself. Which fits which kid, and the written request that starts a legal clock.
For ParentsADHD vs. autism: how to tell the difference
The same behavior can be ADHD, autism, or both. Where the two actually diverge, and the one question to ask whoever evaluates your child.
ADHD & GiftednessWhat an ADHD evaluation actually involves
The "quick ADHD test" doesn't exist. What a real evaluation involves hour by hour, the five look-alikes it rules out, and the report you walk away holding.
ADHD & GiftednessExecutive function, explained for parents
The gap between knowing what to do and doing it has a name. Why executive function reads as laziness, the six-sign gut check, and what actually builds it.
ADHD & Giftedness
Why your child's IQ score doesn't tell the whole story
An IQ score is one number averaged from several. The real story is the spread underneath it, and that is usually where the answers are.
Assessment
IEP season: what a good psych report should do for you
A psych report is not the finish line of an evaluation. It is the strongest tool you bring to the IEP table, if you know what to ask of it.
For Parents
Adult autism evaluation: why more people are seeking it now
More adults are seeking autism evaluations than ever, often after a lifetime of not quite fitting. What the assessment involves and what it can change.
Autism
Telling your child about their diagnosis: a gentle framework
How to tell your child about a diagnosis without scaring them: a calm, age-by-age framework that turns a label into language for what they already feel.
For Parents
ADHD in girls: why it's often missed until middle school
Girls with ADHD are often quietly inattentive rather than disruptive, so they slip through for years, until middle school asks more than their workarounds can carry.
ADHD & Giftedness
What "two pairs of eyes" actually means in our practice
Every evaluation in our practice is run by two clinicians, not one. What that second set of eyes actually catches, and why we built around it.
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