Parents come to the practice for many different reasons. It may be that you are noticing your child struggling with learning, they may have had interventions at a younger age but continue to have difficulty, they may come to you asking for testing, or your child’s school may suggest that you seek out an assessment.

We are a practice that only provides assessment. We tailor our testing to your child’s needs. We are trained to administer tests for IQ, academic performance, learning disabilities in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics, assessments for ADHD and Autism, as well as comprehensive neuropsychological testing which includes attention, memory, executive functioning, language, and visuospatial/visual-motor functioning.

We review testing completed by schools or other professionals and can provide additional testing to look in more depth at specific areas of weakness or concern.

It starts with a call and/or an email. We make every attempt to reach out to you within 48 hours.

We set up a phone or Zoom call to discuss with you your concerns and to answer any questions you may have. This hour long session, conducted by our psychologists, is provided free of charge.

During this call, we will go over with you the process, provide you with available appointment dates/times, and give you a firm quote on the cost of the evaluation. As often as possible, the person you are speaking with during this phone call will be the person who will be completing the assessment with your child.

Once you have booked date(s) for the assessment. We will send you a Good Faith Estimate of charges. This is required by the State of New Jersey to protect the consumer. This fee will not change unless additional testing is requested and approved by you.

Prior to coming to the office, you will be sent a number of forms to fill out. These forms are posted and available on this website. These include:

• A comprehensive developmental history

• A HIPAA release

• An Informed Consent form

• A fee agreement

If your child is 15 or older, they will have to sign an informed consent as well agreeing to take part in the testing.

This allows us to speak with you about the results. This is required by law.

• A permission to speak to outside professionals form

  If your child is seeing a your child’s pediatrician, their therapist, tutor, speech, occupational, or physical therapist that you would like us to speak with, we must get your permission in writing before we can contact them.

We will also send you electronic questionnaires to fill out. We can also send you these forms in paper form if you would rather complete them this way. Exactly which questionnaires depends on the concerns. They may included:

• The Behavior Assessment System for Children - Third Edition (BASC-3)

• Conners 4

• Manifest Anxiety Scale for Children -3 (MASC-3)

• Social Responsiveness Scale - 2 (SRS-2)

These forms and questionnaires should be filled out and returned prior to the first day of testing.

We also request that you provide us with any reports, done by the school or privately to review. This helps us to understand your child’s earlier development and tailor our testing to compare scores.

Once we have this forms you are ready to go.

Do I have to pay anything before the testing starts?

We do not ask for a deposit prior to testing.

Prior to beginning, we will provide you with both a fee agreement showing our fees and a Good Faith Estimate outlining the specific costs for your child’s assessment.

Payment is due at the final testing session and report writing will not be done until the testing is paid in full.

We do not do installment payments or have a sliding fee schedule.

How can I pay?

We take personal or bank checks and have Square available for credit card payments. A convenience fee of 2.9% is added to the cost of the evaluation if you choose to use a credit card. At the current time we do not take Zelle or Venmo.

Do you take insurance?

We do not participate in any insurance plans. We will provide you with an itemized receipt with the final report that you can submit to your insurance. It will contain procedures and diagnostic codes. We do not guarantee you will receive any reimbursement from your insurance company.

Note: IQ and Educational testing is not covered by medical insurance. Direct testing beyond questionnaires is not covered for ADHD. If your child does not have a medical reason for neuropsychological testing, such as a concussion or seizure disorder, most insurance companies will not cover the costs.

We feel very strongly that honesty is the best policy. You child knows that you are concerned and is most likely feeling the frustration and stress of their struggles at school or in the community.

Explain to them the basic process:

You will meet with a person who works with kids who may be having struggles at school.

We refer to ourselves as Doctor, so you may want to let your child know that this isn’t like their pediatrician and they will not be getting any shots as this is often a worry of younger children.

You will be doing activities that help this person understand how you do things. They will be looking at what you do well and at thing that may be more challenging for you. This will included activities that look at reading, writing, and math along with activities that look at attention, memory, and organization/planning.

Stress that your child will not be asked to do things they haven’t learned yet.

Let them know that you will be bringing snacks and a drink for them because they will get breaks in between doing activities.

If your child is anxious, reassure them that you will be staying in the waiting area and will be there if they need you.

Most importantly, reassure them that the reason they are going to see this person is that you want to find out why things are hard for them and find ways to make school/learning, paying attention, and/or other issues easier for them.

If you haven’t already submitted them, please bring all completed forms with you on the first day.

We suggest that you bring non-messy snacks, a drink or water bottle, and a sweater/sweatshirt.

Upon entering the offices:

When you get to the office, we will spend a short time just settling in. We have a warm waiting area and we will spend a few minutes just talking. It is a nice time to have a conversation about what your child likes and ‘break the ice’. This is also a time for us to get to see how your child interact with new people and how they behave in new settings.

Most children are nervous in this new situation. They can be unusually quiet or have increased activity. They may want to explore the room. They may want you to answer any questions the psychologist asks. This is normal and every child’s response is different.

We will also talk about what is going to happen over the sessions they will be coming. They will be reassured that they will only be asked things they have learned, be encouraged to ask any questions they may have, and that it is okay to guess on things they are unsure of.

When your child is comfortable enough to begin:

We will encourage him to move to the smaller test room. The test rooms are located down a short hall, within view of the waiting area. Except for very young children, we do not allow the parent in the testing room. Just like your child goes to school by him/herself, we want to interact with them without the parent in the room. We have found over the years that children are more inhibited when the parent is in the room. We reassure them that their mom or dad will be sitting in the waiting area and if they need to see them, they can come out and do so.

If your child is hesitant, we can have the parent walk them to the room and after a few minutes, excuse themselves and leave. Generally children are comfortable with separating after a few minutes.

Testing:

Typically, depending on the age of the child, testing will be done in 45-60 minute sessions. In between, a 10-15 minute break will be encouraged. After the break, the child will return to the testing room for another session. Remember, except for very young children, they are used to being at school and working for extended periods of time.

Some children, especially older ones, may decline breaks and many choose to eat their snack while involved in the testing. These times allow for conversations between the psychologist and the child and provide more information to help with understanding things from the child’s perspective.

High School aged adolescents generally do not take breaks as they are used to full days at school but they are offered.

Who should be at the appointments?

As far as who should bring the child. That is very dependent on your family and scheduling. We love to meet both parents and some come to all the appointments. Others trade off with mom coming on some of the days and dad on the other. We have children brought by grandparents and sometimes babysitters. High school or older students may drive themselves. It really depends on how comfortable your child is coming to the office.

Once the child is comfortable and the testing begins, the parent will wait in the waiting area. We encourage you to bring a book or work as you will be in the office for an extended period of time. We have WiFi if you need to do work while you wait.

You do not have to stay if your child is comfortable with you leaving. We will ask you to fill out a form with contact and medical information before you leave, just in case we need to contact you. We do ask that you keep your phone near at all times if you leave.

Other family members:

We are a relatively small office and we ask that you do not bring siblings to the appointments. It is a long time for them to wait and they can be distracting to their brother or sister who is involved in the testing. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause but we have found it to be the best policy for everyone.

This is your choice. You are the person in control of the report. We follow HIPAA regulations and are not allowed to speak to outside individuals, even to say you have an appointment, unless we have your permission.

If your child is having problems at school, we strongly encourage you to speak to the school and provide a copy of our report once the process is over. The purpose of doing assessments is to provide you with information so you can make informed decisions regarding your child.

We can talk about this at the parent review if you are unsure of what to do.

We feel it is good policy to let the school know that your child will be out so that you can get homework or assignments for them. Children, especially high school students, can get very anxious about missing school work. Since these are excused absences, schools often will provide homework ahead of time. They are also required to make sure that classroom material is reviewed with the student when they return.

Days of testing:

Your child appointments are considered an excused absence for medical reasons. We will gladly provide you with a letter indicated the dates you were in the office at your request.

Medication:

We recommend that you administer medication as if it is a school day. For example, if your child is given ADHD medication on school days, you should give it to them on the days they come to our offices. This is their “normal” and if they are having trouble concentrating in school on ADHD medication, we should be able to assess it in the assessment process.

We administer computerized tests for ADHD and if a parent wants, we can have your child come back on a separate day, off medication and repeat the test. This will let you see their performance on and off medication.

If your child is taking a medication for a medical condition, please make sure they get it as per their prescription.

Glasses:

If your child wears prescription glasses at school, please make sure to bring them with you.

We do not evaluate virtually. Our practice feels very strongly that working directly with a child over a period of time helps us understand them better so all testing is done in-person by a licensed psychologist.

We do not videotape assessments and we do not use technicians to administer the tests.

Once the testing is completed, we will schedule a date for a parent feedback session.

We generally required two weeks to score, interpret, and write the report. This can take longer if all of the paperwork and the questionnaires are not completed and returned promptly.

Once the report is done, we will email you an encrypted copy of the report. This is not to be distributed until after the parent feedback as changes may be made once results are discussed.

We do not change or omit data from our reports. If you want to share something with us but do not want it in the report, please let us know before testing begins and we will not include it.

Parent Feedback:

The parent feedback session is designed to go over the results and recommendation. We want to make sure that you understand how your child performance and why we came to our conclusions.

Where is the parent feedback session held? Does my child have to come?

Meetings can be held in person at the offices of D C Fagan Psychological Services or via Zoom. They typically last 90 minutes. They can included anyone the parent would like to be present.

Children do not come to the feedback session. For older students, we encourage a Zoom meeting with part of it being with the parents only and part with the student present. It can b very uncomfortable for a young person to hear people talking “about them.” We can also arrange for a second phone or Zoom feedback with the student if they have questions. This can be discussed at the parent feedback.

The fee for the parent feedback session is included in the overall cost.

We provide diagnoses, if our data confirms them. We will list previous diagnoses made by other professionals but may not confirm them.

Once the parent meeting is over, a final report will be mailed to you within a few days. We can send you an electronic copy on request.

If you would like us to attend a school meeting, this can be arranged. This is an additional cost based on our hourly rate.