At The Stixrud Group, we typically conduct comprehensive evaluations for children because we believe that it is critical to understand the whole story of a child’s health and development. Individuals with conditions such as ADHD and autism often have additional challenges, or “co-occurring disorders”. Missing these co-occurring conditions can have a negative impact on a child. For instance, if a child who is diagnosed with ADHD and is receiving appropriate treatment and supports also has an undiagnosed learning disorder, they may continue to struggle in school, and to experience stress and frustration, because of the learning disorder. This could affect their self-esteem, social relationships, and overall quality of life. In addition, particularly in children, specific symptoms may have a variety of root causes; a student who appears to be inattentive or lost in the classroom may have an attention disorder, a language disorder, or both.
Think about it as though we are baking a cake. If we only focus on measuring one ingredient, say adjusting the amount of sugar, we might not realize that there is not enough flour, or too many eggs. It’s like this with understanding a child’s neuropsychological health. If we only look at one condition, like ADHD or autism, we might miss other important issues, such as anxiety or learning disorders.
By doing a full evaluation, we’re making sure we understand all the parts of the recipe for a child’s well-being, learning, and development. At the same time, we want to stress that there can be reasons to make an exception to this approach – examples that come to mind include very young children or children who already have had recent partial or full evaluations – and we encourage you to reach out to us for further discussion.