DECISION TREES FOR DIFFERENT REFERRAL QUESTIONS
*Disclaimer: These decision trees are not intended to result in targeted evaluations. Instead they are intended to be intertwined across domains depending upon the child’s age, presentation, language ability, testing behaviors, and skill set.
Intelligence testing should be part of almost all assessments as serve as a basis for evaluating and comparing other skill sets.
Autism and Developmental Delay Evaluations can arguably be done beginning at a young age (generally around 2), but evaluations will differ depending on language ability.
Learning Disability assessments can start as young as 4 but for some they may not be appropriate until closer to 6. It is important to rule out other confounding factors as well (e.g. language delay, anxiety, medical ailments, environment).
Attention/ADHD assessments can start as young as 5 but for some they may not be appropriate older if their dysregulation is too severe to reliability and validly assess executive functions. It is important to rule out other confounding factors as well (e.g. anxiety, medical ailments, developmental delay).
Language Disorder assessments can start as young as 2 but for some they may not be appropriate later. It is important to rule out other confounding factors as well (e.g., developmental delay, ADHD, anxiety, medical ailments, environment).
When assessing mood and anxiety symptomatology, it is important to rule out other confounding factors as well (e.g. language delay, learning disability, medical ailments, environment).