Toronto Psychological Assessments And Testing

Dr. O'Connor's Psychological Assessments and Testing services help get to "the root" of  the psychological concerns that present in young people, and point to evidence-based solutions to address them. Children, adolescents and young adults suffer from a range of psychological concerns, from the relatively benign to the more serious. Their families, and the professionals who work with them are searching for help to support these young people. They want to get to "the root" of the problems that inhibit their potentials, and find effective strategies to address them.

Dr. O'Connor offers psychological assessments and testing services to help young adults with learning problems obtain appropriate support at the college/ university level, or accommodations to assist with college/university admission exams.

Dr. O'Connor psychological assessments incorporate her post doctoral training in School Neuropsychology, and integrate a brain/behaviour focus to assess the young person's functioning levels across a range of concerns. This includes an exploration of the young person's strengths and weaknesses across various neurocognitive domains, and how this pattern impacts learning, and/or the young person's  social, emotional and behavioral functioning. 

Psychological Assessments And Testing Can Help

Dr. O'Connor gears her Psychological Assessments and Testing services to the specific needs of the young person. Her psychological assessments and testing services zero in on the issues that are of particular concern  for the young person. The psychological assessment becomes a part of the solution, and leads to evidence based  Interventions to address the psychological concerns that present in the young person. Not every child or youth who exhibits a problem needs an extensive evaluation, although many do.

Dr. O'Connor's psychological assessments sharpen the focus or "open a window" on the young person's strengths and specific needs. You will have a clearer picture of how the child, adolescent or young person is doing across various developmental and/or neuro-cognitive domains, and the kind of interventions that can help in areas of concern.

Through her focus on school neuropsychology and the in-depth comprehensive school neuropsychological assessments she provides, Dr. O'Connor  addresses a range neuropsychcological concerns that present in young people.

These include:

• Sensori-motor functions, visual spatial skills, phonological/auditory processing skills, learning and memory, as well as executive, attention and working memory functions.
• Fluency, processing speed and cognitive efficiency.  Standardized measures within these domains also assess the young person's problem solving skills, his reasoning and thinking skills, his non-verbal and verbal ability. 
• Language skills and academic functioning levels.   
• Social, emotional and behavioral issues such as anxiety, depression, aggression and/or depression, and problems relating appropriately to others. 
• Trauma related issues, such as a single acute traumatic event, for example, a motor vehicle accident. Or  more chronic, ongoing stressors such as bullying, abuse, maltreatment and attachment breaches, or domestic and community violence. 
• Learning problems, such as specific learning disabilities, or reading, written language and math disorders. 
• Or acquired brain injuries (e.g., concussions or mild TBI).

How Does It Work?

When conducting a psychological assessment, Dr. O'Connor relies on information from a variety of sources. These include background information gathered from the young person's parents, teachers or other significant adults, from  school reports, or previous assessments. Dr. O'Connor also relies on questionnaires, behavior rating scales and other informal measures to learn more about the child or adolescent, including his social, emotional and behavioral functioning, his neuro-cognitive strengths and weaknesses and his academic skill levels.

Dr. O'Connor also uses standardized assessment measures to compare the young person's psychological functioning to others of the same age across a range of behaviors and skills.

Standardized measures include intelligence and cognitive/learning measures, academic tests and tests to measure the young person's  neuro-cognitive skills across numerous domains. These include sensori-motor skills, memory & learning skills, auditory/phonological skills, visual-spatial and language skills, executive functions and processing speed skills. The young person's social, emotional and behavioral functioning, as well as his academic skills are also assessed.

The assessment takes several hours to complete and usually involves more than one session, typically two sessions, and sometimes three of approximately three hours each.

Dr. O'Connor tailors the assessment to the young person's specific needs and uses assessment tools and approaches that address the concerns that are at issue for the child, adolescent or young adult. No two children are alike of how they present, and the specific neraucognig are and the nercognitine pattern differers foe eac chil. Two cchildren foe maymeet the criteria for a kearnig disabilityreading disbikity but the neropsychological issues will doiffer fpr each chold. and the recommendations etc. will differ for each child. 

Typically the young person attends two assessment sessions of about three hours each. The assessment results are scored. Dr. O'Connor reviews and interprets the assessment findings, and writes a comprehensive detailed report. Following her review and interpretation of the findings, and her completion of the report, she meets with the client/s and provides a verbal and written report of the assessment findings. The written report provides a comprehensive summary of the assessment results and includes recommendations to address issues of concern, and a diagnosis or diagnoses when appropriate.