How much is a neuropsych eval and what did you learn?

amother

Mon, Dec 18 2023, 11:39 pm

I’m curious if one of my kids has ADHD like many in dh family do.
I was told that in order to really know that I’d need a neuropsychology evaluation but many people also told me it’s not necessary for this kid now.
It seems that if the symptoms aren’t bad enough to be medicated there isn’t much gained and the expense was mentioned by everybody- the pediatrician, other parents, the psycho-education evaluator (I tried to see if the kid is eligible for P3 so started testing them, plan to do OT eval too which hopefully will tell me more)…
So when did you decide to test, how much did you pay, and what did you learn?

amother

Copper

Mon, Dec 18 2023, 11:53 pm

Can you try to have it done at a college?
My son had a psycho-educational evaluation done at a college by an advance graduate student who was being supervised. She has the credentials to diagnose. He already had a diagnosis of ASD and ADHD (this was done by a developmental pediatrician in a children’s hospital) but the findings of the evaluation gave us a diagnosis of specific learning disorder (dyslexia) and a confirmation of ASD and ADHD. The psycho- educational evaluation was much more in depth than the testing done by the developmental pediatrician. It was many many hours of testing. The college had a sliding scale and we paid very little for it. the report is many many pages with findings and recommendations.

amother

Mon, Dec 18 2023, 11:58 pm

amother Copper wrote:

Interesting idea. They had a psychoeducational to see if they were eligible for certain resources but I don’t think the neuropsych eval is covered for these programs.

amother

DarkGray

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 8:00 am

I think it depends if it's very clear that a child has straightforward ADHD and that there is absolutely nothing else going on. For me it was helpful in guidance, diagnosis, what route to take and what to continue to look out for.
Malky zacharowitz spent a lot of time on the phone with us beforehand discussing our concerns to determine if she felt she was the right address. She wasn't looking to evaluate and have us spend if it wasn't necessary. And when I spoke with her about another child who seemed more straightforward her suggestion to me what that perhaps their need could be met elsewhere with less intensive evaluating

amother

Razzmatazz

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 8:33 am

We were able to get ours paid for by the BOE. Maybe speak to the agency doing the evaluations to find out if and how you can do it too. (We had to request it from the BOE, wait for the forms, and then were able to take her.)
My daughter was already receiving services, but we realized something more was going on, and the school and BOE wanted us to see exactly what she had so they could help her better. She did get a diagnosis of ADHD, but it also helped us rule out ASD.

amother

Hyssop

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 9:00 am

We paid about a bit over 4 Thousand dollars for one . I think if you’re only looking for an ADHD diagnosis you can go to a neurologist and do testing. We were looking for learning disabilities and the only way to do that is to do a full neuropsych also to apply to certain schools you need a neuropsych. It’s a very thorough test it’s interesting because now I just have everything on paper and I understand a little bit more but I didn’t really learn anything new cause I knew what we were dealing with and no I just want to listen to me.

amother

Fern

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 9:18 am

If it’s just to see if he has ADHD you don’t need a neuropsych eval. A neuropsychologist won’t even be able to prescribe medication if that is ultimately what you need, so then you would have to go for an evaluation by a psychiatrist afterwards. The point of neuropsych would really be if there are learning issues that you were looking to diagnose or to get abroad plan of what type of interventions might be most helpful. If you think your child has ADHD and you just want an evaluation for that and treatment recommendations, including a prescription for medication if that is what is recommended just go straight to a child psychiatrist. It should cost you way less than a neuropsychological evaluation. I did a neuropsych eval for my kids twice. For one of them, it was a total waste of money as it basically confirmed exactly the issue that we knew he had, for the second one she did make a recommendation for a specific treatment program that really helped address his underlying reading issues. But again most of the information was rather useless and I really think if you can try to figure out the problem, without that step, you will save a lot of money time and probably land in the same place. Certainly if there are no academic issues that you were concerned about, I would not bother.

amother

Cornsilk

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 9:27 am

amother Fern wrote:

What kind of treatments are there for other learning disabilities, not reading related?

amother

Fern

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 9:31 am

amother Cornsilk wrote:

What kind of treatments are there for other learning disabilities, not reading related?

With my son we couldn’t figure out what was holding him back exactly, so an eval was needed to pinpoint the problem. He was found to have an auditory processing disorder so then we were able to target what could be done to help addresss that. Some kids have weakness in other areas that affect comprehension etc, so if there’s a learning issue, you need to know what the issue is bec sometimes (really not always) there’s something to do.

amother

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 9:32 am

amother Fern wrote:

So this is basically confirming what I’ve understood until now. My child is very disorganized and can be unfocused, and also very bright BH. We’ve just done a psycho ed eval and it wasn’t scored yet but the evaluator said the child went very high in the scores.
So I’m not concerned with the academics per se but concerned that the lack of organization and focus will be a problem later in life practically.
I am also pursuing a BOE OT eval I hope it will be illuminating.
I don’t see a reason yet to meditate the child.
I guess good coaching would be best but from threads here I see it’s very difficult to get.

amother

Mocha

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 9:34 am

amother Fern wrote:

This is not correct. It’s not about learning disabilities. It’s about any deficit, social, emotional, mental, physical etc… it gives you a full picture. And if yours was a waste of time then you went to someone who does a fake job for schools which is just to get the diagnosis code. So do research and don’t waste time on the fakers.

amother

Cornsilk

Tue, Dec 19 2023, 9:40 am

amother Fern wrote:

I was actually thinking about auditory processing. Not to go off topic, but what types of things, generally speaking, are helpful?