Child & Adolescent / School Psychology

Child & Adolescent / School Psychology Services Include:

Special Education Accommodations

Federal and local laws require schools and the companies that administer college and graduate school admission tests to accommodate the special needs of certain students.

Special Education Evaluations serve to document your entitlement to accommodations and specify the accommodations that will allow you to earn the grades you deserve and gain admission to the schools you choose.

Gifted Assessments

Students who are intellectually gifted require access to challenging curricula and teachers who know how to help students make use of their gift. Gifted testing helps to identify which students will benefit from such access and in which subjects and skills the student has particular strengths.

Testing generally consists of IQ measures and Academic Functioning assessments. These tests are designed to help teachers, parents and the student structure educational experiences that maximize each student’s potential.

Learning Disability Assessments

No student should struggle in school. Once the students’ strengths and weaknesses are identified, their curriculum, study skills, and learning skills can be adjusted to ensure their success. Learning Disability Assessments help to identify the correct placement and needs of a student.

Testing generally consists of IQ measures and Academic Functioning assessments. These tests are designed to help teachers, parents and the student find the most ideal classroom setting as well as identify appropriate interventions and accommodations.

Attention Deficit Assessments

Attention Deficits Disorders are real, and are broken down into several subtypes. When accurately diagnosed and treated, children with these disorders can succeed in school and go on to succeed in adult life. When left undiagnosed or untreated, these disorders disrupt careers and marriages and are associated with high levels of substance abuse and addiction.

ADD Evaluations help identify students who are mis-diagnosed with ADD, help correctly diagnose the subtype of ADD, and guide the appropriate treatment when treatment is in order (despite the myths, treatment does not always involve amphetamine-class medications).

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are stressful or traumatic events, including abuse, neglect, exposure to substance abuse or mental illness in a family member, and loss of a family member. Our psychologists are trained to identify ACE indicators and utilize trauma-informed care (TIC) along with other types of treatment to address the lasting, measurable consequences of these experiences and to identify paths for recovery.

Applied Behavior Analysis

Using the principles of ABA, a trained therapist is able to apply systematic interventions to improve socially significant behaviors in children displaying impaired social skills. ABA is a widely recognized and utilized treatment for Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

Play Therapy

Play is a child’s natural developmental language for understanding themselves and the world around them. A trained Play Therapist is able to use the therapeutic powers of play to create a safe and structured place for the establishment of a trusting therapeutic relationship with a child.

The child is then free to explore their internal world in a way that helps them to prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development.

Parent Child Interaction Therapy

PCIT is an empirically-supported treatment for young children with emotional and behavioral disorders, including ADD/ADHD, Autism, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

Emphasis is placed on improving the quality of the parent-child relationship and changing parent-child interaction patterns.

Child Behavior Interventions

When a child behaves in a manner that is disruptive to family life, social interactions, adjustment to school, or harmful to themselves, it is a cause for concern for parents and loved ones.

The child specialists at Carter Psychology Center are trained to differentiate a child’s behavior related to developmental delays or environmental circumstances versus behavior that is the result of a disorder or syndrome.

Specific behavior and intervention plans are utilized to target a child’s behavior with proactive, positive behavior supports.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

EMDR has proven effective for the treatment of trauma. It is designed to have a direct effect on the way that the brain processes information. Normal information processing is resumed, so that a patient no longer relives the images, sounds, and feelings when the event is brought to mind. A patient still remembers what happened, but the emotional distress is significantly decreased.

Trauma Focused Therapy

TFT is an evidence based treatment protocol designed to reduce negative emotional and behavioral responses following child sexual abuse, domestic violence, traumatic loss, and other traumatic events.

TFT addresses distorted beliefs and attributions related to the abuse and provides a supportive environment in which children are encouraged to talk about their traumatic experience.

TFT also helps parents who were not abusive to cope effectively with their own emotional distress and develop skills that support their children.

Pediatric Neuropsychology

Pediatric neuropsychology is a subspecialty of psychology that studies brain-behavior relationships in children and adolescents. A comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation can assess a child’s functioning in many domains and will provide information regarding strengths and weaknesses across many important areas, such as thinking and reasoning, memory and learning, attention, behavioral and emotional control, social skills, and academic achievement. Recommendations are then tailor-made to assist each child in reaching their full potential.