Social Thinking Assessments and Consultations - General Information
An evaluation by our staff is NOT required prior to placement in our groups. Group placement is most commonly achieved once our staff receives an application for services, then reviews letters, diagnostics & reports submitted by the family.
- Assessments and Consultations serve a number of purposes including:
- Exploring the specific social thinking challenges that can impact functioning across the home and school day.
- Determining appropriate levels and related areas to target in writing goals to begin or continue educational lessons.
- Having our staff become familiar with the client for possible placement in a social thinking group (however, this is not mandatory for inclusion in our clinical program).
- Discussing reasonable expectations for the child across his or her school years while exploring if the traditional school curriculum will continue to be of strong benefit for the child.
Our fee is $500 for a 3.0 hour assessment; however ˝ hour of that time is for us to read the student's past reports. Any further time needed for the assessment and ensuing discussion will be billed at $155 per hour, billed in 15-minute increments. It is fairly common for the appointment to last through an additional hour. If families want the appointment to stop at the end of the 2.5 hour allotted assessment time they must notify their clinician ahead of time. Report writing fees are not included in the assessment fee (please see below for pdf document that explains fees and policies in detail).
Do to the fact that a number of families have cancelled these appointments at the last minute, a $250 non-refundable deposit is now required to hold the appointment slot. The deposit money is due two weeks prior to the appointment. If it is not received, we reserve the right to schedule another client in this spot. The deposit will be applied to the total assessment cost.
Those familiar with the challenges of assessing a student with social thinking challenges know that it is impossible to understand the depth and scope of the problem from the administration of standardized tests. During this evaluation, the student will primarily be assessed using an informal qualitative assessment. The assessment proceedings are described in great detail in the last chapter of Michelle's book, Thinking About YOU Thinking About ME. Michelle has also written an article about the assessment process that is available for free on this web site (see Philosophy).
- Through the assessment we explore the student's ability to:
- initiate functional communication
- use his or her eyes to interpret other people's thoughts and emotions
- abstract and infer
- take perspective of others quickly and efficiently
- "get the whole picture" or gestalt process
- self-organize and problem solve
During the assessment the parents can either stay in the room with the child or observe through a one-way mirror. Parents often find the assessment proceedings to be very informative, further explaining the symptomology they were observing.
Immediately following the assessment, the parents meet with the clinician to discuss the findings and develop a treatment plan for home, school and community.
