Mind Care Therapy Suites

Psychological Assessments

Psychological assessments are done through clinical observations, standardized testing, clinical rating scales, and corroboration from complementary sources of information. Frequently, diagnostic assessments are also used in conjunction with the doctor’s clinical assessment in order to help with a final diagnosis. 

Diagnostic assessments help to identify disorders which may otherwise be misunderstood as behavioral problems. The proper identification of disorders directs us towards an evidence-based treatment plan and this helps to guide interventions greatly.

types of assessments

We provide standardized psychological assessments for children, adolescents, adults and the elderly to understand their psychological profiles and treatment needs.

Our Assessment Reports are written by registered Clinical Psychologists with specific accreditation and training in administering these instruments, and meet MOE/SEAB requirements.

Learning & Education-related

IQ Assessments are helpful when:

  • Your child has difficulty coping with his or her current school demands.
  • There is a concern whether your child is ready for Primary 1 in a mainstream school.
  • Your child may benefit more from a special education service rather than mainstream education.
  • Your child has any existing medical condition or is on any medication that may affect his or her learning or thinking ability.

What the assessment tests for:

A typical intelligence quotient (IQ) test requires your child to solve some problems in a given time under supervision. In the IQ test, there are many subtests. Some require your child to respond to the questions verbally while others require your child to make patterns with coloured blocks and to look at some pictures. Some of these mini tests are timed, so your child will need to do as many questions in the mini test as he or she can within a time limit.

Traditional IQ tests focus on measuring linguistic (language) and logical (analytical) intelligence.

Other test details:

The whole test takes about 1 to 2 hours to administer depending on the age of your child.

IQ is usually stable over time and unless there are unusual circumstances, re-testing of IQ within 2 years is not recommended.

School readiness tests are typically administered to understand if a child is ready for formal schooling (Grade One). A child is considered school ready when deemed to be able to cope with the formal demands (intellectual, emotional, conceptual, adaptive functioning) of schooling. Children are deemed to be intellectually school-ready if they score a mental age of 6 years 3 months on standardized school readiness assessments.

Why is it important to be school-ready

Besides the obvious implication that a child who is not school-ready will simply not cope in class and will more than likely fail the academic year, one has to keep the significance of the first school year in mind. A child who is not ready for grade 1 will most likely feel completely overwhelmed in class, and may develop a fear or dislike of school all together. The child might also notice that all his classmates are able to cope with tasks that he finds difficult and may begin to think that there is something wrong with him. This may lead to a low self-esteem.

It is thus crucial to establish that a child is indeed “school ready” before enrolling them for Grade One.

Intellectual disability is a developmental disorder where the individual faces more difficulty than others in grasping concepts and solving problems. Referrals to special schools in Singapore for people with intellectual disabilities will be most helpful in providing your child with the most optimal learning environment, learning pace and specialized teaching methods to help your child. We note that in mainstream schools, the teacher-student ratio is large and teachers are often unable to spend extra time or use a different teaching method to help students with intellectual disabilities. Over time, this may result in low self-esteem for the child. This low self-esteem may manifest as anger outbursts, constant irritation and even school avoidance. 

What does it mean to be a gifted child? There is no broadly accepted definition. Schools generally look at ability and intelligence tests, but do not all use the same standard. For example, one school might consider students at the top 10% gifted and another school might only consider the top 2.5%.

Diagnostic Assessments

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a brain disorder marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development.

  • Inattention means a person wanders off task, lacks persistence, has difficulty sustaining focus, and is disorganized; and these problems are not due to defiance or lack of comprehension.
  • Hyperactivity means a person seems to move about constantly, including in situations in which it is not appropriate; or excessively fidgets, taps, or talks. In adults, it may be extreme restlessness or wearing others out with constant activity.
  • Impulsivity means a person makes hasty actions that occur in the moment without first thinking about them and that may have high potential for harm; or a desire for immediate rewards or inability to delay gratification. An impulsive person may be socially intrusive and excessively interrupt others or make important decisions without considering the long-term consequences.                                   

A good way to understand ADHD is to establish what it isn’t. It isn’t the result of bad parenting or of your child being lazy or disobedient. ADHD is a biological condition that makes it hard for many children to sit still and concentrate.

Signs of dyslexia can be difficult to recognize before your child enters school, but some early clues may indicate a problem. Once your child reaches school age, your child’s teacher may be the first to notice a problem. Severity varies, but the condition often becomes apparent as a child starts learning to read.

Before school

Signs that a young child may be at risk of dyslexia include:

  • Late talking
  • Learning new words slowly
  • Problems forming words correctly, such as reversing sounds in words or confusing words that sound alike
  • Problems remembering or naming letters, numbers and colors
  • Difficulty learning nursery rhymes or playing rhyming games

School age

Once your child is in school, dyslexia signs and symptoms may become more apparent, including:

  • Reading well below the expected level for age
  • Problems processing and understanding what he or she hears
  • Difficulty finding the right word or forming answers to questions
  • Problems remembering the sequence of things
  • Difficulty seeing (and occasionally hearing) similarities and differences in letters and words
  • Inability to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word
  • Difficulty spelling
  • Spending an unusually long time completing tasks that involve reading or writing
  • Avoiding activities that involve reading

Teens and adults

Dyslexia signs in teens and adults are similar to those in children. Some common dyslexia signs and symptoms in teens and adults include:

  • Difficulty reading, including reading aloud
  • Slow and labor-intensive reading and writing
  • Problems spelling
  • Avoiding activities that involve reading
  • Mispronouncing names or words, or problems retrieving words
  • Trouble understanding jokes or expressions that have a meaning not easily understood from the specific words (idioms), such as “piece of cake” meaning “easy”
  • Spending an unusually long time completing tasks that involve reading or writing
  • Difficulty summarizing a story
  • Trouble learning a foreign language
  • Difficulty memorizing
  • Difficulty doing math problems

The “gold-standard ASD assessment” is very detailed and it covers aspects of the child’s

  1. Level of Intellectual Functioning
  2. ASD characteristics and impairment
  3. Ability to take care of himself

A proper assessment will confirm suspicions of whether a child has ASD or not, and this will strongly guide the intervention process. Referrals to ASD friendly interventions, such as direct applied behavioural analysis, social skills trainings, community support, appropriate preschools/primary schools/special schools in Singapore for people with ASD, will make a very big impact in providing your child with the most optimal learning environment, learning pace and specialized teaching methods to help your child.

Learn more about Assessments

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