Getting an assessment can provide the clarity you are seeking. Perhaps you have multiple diagnoses from many different providers and you are not sure which one is accurate or where to start. Maybe you believe you may have a difficulty with your learning and nothing has worked to make school or work easier for you. Maybe you are noticing problems with your memory or certain cognitive skills that are causing problems in your day to day life. Whatever the reason, an assessment can provide insight, recommendations, diagnoses and new direction in finding the treatments and supports needed to help you thrive.

Actually, there are two different kinds of assessment.

Whenever you see a Psychologist for any reason, the first appointment starts with what is called an Informal Assessment – they will interview you, discuss your symptoms and history, and may give you some screening questionnaires. This allows them to form an opinion about your diagnoses and the likely best route to reach your goals.

A Formal Assessment includes everything you would complete in the Informal Assessment but with the addition of formal testing – you’ll complete various activities and tasks after which you are scored in comparison to others with an equivalent age and education level. Significant others in your life may also be interviewed or complete questionnaires.

At the end of a Formal Assessment, you receive a formal document with your official diagnosis and recommendations. This can be used to access funding, communicate the results with your therapist and other supports, and seek medical interventions as needed. You may even qualify for tax breaks. Without this document, it is often very difficult or impossible to access these services and resources.

This kind of assessment requires in depth training and supervision and is a very specific skillset. It helps reduce the bias of the person assessing you, looks at a broad range of data, and you can be confident in the results.  Most importantly, the results will be accepted by other medical professionals and government representatives.

Tests within the public domain such as anything you might look up online are considered lesser quality tests and/or have been around for so long that they may or may not still be relevant.  The tests that you complete in Formal Assessment are not published publicly for the very reason that they lose some validity because now, the public can study them beforehand and the results may not be accurate.  The integrity of the test is compromised.  It’s like cheating on a test.

While you may tell me you have memory problems, I can prove that by doing a memory task and finding that you formally scored in the Below Average or Low range compared to others similar to you.

In another example, perhaps you struggle with symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder but require official documentation as proof for your workplace or evidence for an insurance provider to support your inability to keep full-time employment.  As a Canadian army veteran or RCMP member, the formal assessment may be required to get funding for a service-related injury as well as ongoing professional services such as massage, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, or even psychological intervention.

That’s not all.  A proper assessment also allows a more in depth and specific understanding of what exact interventions you will need, so rather than stating, for example, that you struggled with completing schoolwork or classroom activities as a child and this has carried over into your present-day office work, the assessment can tell us exactly which parts create the difficulty.  The results may show that not only do you have a slow processing speed of information but you do better processing visual information rather than verbal so may need visual graphs and charts or written information along with verbal instructions.  With this information in hand, very specific adjustments can be made in your workspace.

Mental health or needs are complicated and often different conditions can look very similar.  These assessments are built to make those differentiations as clearly as possible.

Formal Assessments typically take up to a full day to complete including the interview and formal testing. Then, all of the information collected is reviewed, scored and integrated into an intensive and detailed report with the diagnoses and recommendations. This report is always discussed in detail with you prior to being finalized, which will ensure we answer your questions with accuracy and in a way that provides meaningful recommendations for creating change.

Because the process and testing used will be tailored to your individual needs, the exact number of hours and cost will be unique to you.  Please feel welcome to reach out for an estimate.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of great options for assessment funding. There are certain programs and options that can be helpful;

1) Psychologists Association of Alberta has a Psychological Grant that your Psychologist can apply for on your behalf in the fall. This grant covers up to 5 sessions of therapy or the equivalent cost of an assessment so it will help with a large portion of it (around $1100.00). It is easy to apply for this but it is in high demand so your Psychologist has to apply the day the application opens and each Psychologist or Clinic is only allowed to apply for one client per year.

2) If you have therapy benefits covered under your insurance, you can ask them if they will relocate the funds into covering an assessment or use funds from another family member who never accesses therapy. Sometimes you’ll get lucky.

3) If you believe you may have a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), there is sometimes funding available for assessments or they will reimburse you for your assessment costs. You can contact the Persons with Developmental Disabilities board near you to inquire.

4) If you are seeking an assessment for your child, always start by checking with your school as schools receive government funding for a certain number of Psychoeducational Assessments a year and may cover the full cost with their own assessor. The drawback here is sometimes you have to wait for some time to have this completed depending on demand and resources.

5) If you do end up with a diagnosis, you can sometimes qualify for certain funding after the fact which could be used to offset the cost of the assessment. For example, PTSD or ADHD have different options available to them. 

6) If you are on AISH funding, speak with your case worker as sometimes they will fund assessments as well.

7) There are a few clinics in the Central Alberta area that your family physician can refer you to for a specific type of assessment (e.g., memory testing, autism, personality, etc.) so it is always wise to speak with your doctor first.

Please feel free to ask about your particular situation and we will do our best to help you find any resources that may help! 

We offer assessments for the following needs;

·        Psychoeducational Assessments (for diagnosis and recommendations regarding Learning Disabilities, ADHD, and learning needs)

·        Mental Health Differential (for attaining an accurate and evidence based mental health or personality diagnosis or for clarifying and reducing the number of diagnoses currently given).

·        Personality Assessment (to determine personality constellation). A formal personality assessment is not at all the same as an online personality test.  It can be used as support for medication decisions, types of therapeutic intervention that are particularly helpful for that disorder, and can help you understand yourself better to identify the right strategies for change.

·        Memory Assessment (to explore and identify memory impairments and needs)

·        PTSD Assessment (to explore and identify severity of PTSD, comorbid conditions, and the impact of ones PTSD on their life and day to day functioning as well as provide recommendations for supports, funding and interventions).