ATTENTION-DEFICIT/HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD) EVALUATION

We offer ADHD assessments for adolescents and adults. You may be able to use your insurance to cover a portion of the costs of testing. Our out-of-pocket rates for ADHD assessment vary depending on the length and breadth of testing we conduct. If you have difficulty concentrating, staying focused, switching tasks, staying on topic, or consider yourself fidgety, an ADHD evaluation may be well suited for you. Whether you are an adolescent who is struggling in school or an adult who is finding it challenging to stay focused at work, we can accurately assess your symptoms and offer personalized recommendations to help you best succeed.  We provide re-evaluations for adults who were diagnosed with ADHD during childhood, since it is often necessary to have an updated evaluation for your primary care provider or psychiatrist if your previous testing is at least ten years old. We also provide first-time evaluations for adults who believe they have ADHD but have never been evaluated.

Our ADHD evaluations always begin with a comprehensive clinical interview where information is gathered about your personal history and the symptoms you experience. This interview is an opportunity for us to get to know you better and understand more about your symptoms, so that we can select the best testing measures to use for your evaluation. With your permission, we may also ask for information from parents, teachers, doctors, or previous testing in order to get a well-rounded picture of how your symptoms are impacting your work and personal life. 

We customize each ADHD evaluation to fit your needs; however, most evaluations will consist of a measure that assesses your intellectual functioning (such as an IQ test), along with measures that assess for the presence of ADHD inattentive and hyperactive symptoms through questionnaires, and a comprehensive, computerized measure (called a Continuous Performance Test) that examines how you focus, sustain, and shift your attention. Additionally, we incorporate broad measures that assess for attention and other mood symptoms to help us distinguish between ADHD and other disorders. In some cases, an underlying mood, anxiety, trauma, or other condition can be mimicking symptoms of ADHD, and in other cases, a person has more than one of these disorders at the same time. Since many psychological and neurological disorders have similar or overlapping symptoms, we use a variety of tests to help us diagnose you thoroughly and accurately. 

Administering the tests for this type of evaluation typically takes an average of 5 to 8 hours to complete. Depending on your schedule and needs, we may be able to complete the entire evaluation with you in a single day (taking breaks to stretch, have lunch, etc. as needed), or we may meet with you to complete testing over the course of multiple meetings. 

Once testing is complete, we will score all of the testing measures, interpret the results, and then write up a report within two weeks. This report will summarize the results of your testing, explain the diagnosis or diagnoses, and include several recommendations for treatment as well as resources you may choose to utilize to help you manage the symptoms of your diagnosis. Upon completion of this report, we will invite you back to our office for a feedback session (lasting approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour) where we will go over the report, results, and recommendations in great detail. We will ensure you have the chance to have any questions answered that you might have about the results.

For adolescents, recommendations may include having more time to complete classroom assignments or standardized tests, being allowed to take breaks during the school day, biofeedback or neurofeedback, individual and family therapy to learn coping skills for ADHD symptoms, and/or a referral to a psychiatrist to explore potential medication regimens. For adults, recommendations may include ways to better time manage and remain focused at work, neurofeedback, individual therapy to learn coping skills and self-care, and/or a referral to a psychiatrist.