What Does Getting ”Evaluated” Mean? — With Mark Westerfield

We are very excited to welcome another guest to the Sh*t Your Teenagers Won’t Tell You podcast! Joining Cathy and Meredith today is Mark Westerfield, a clinical psychologist who focuses on cognitive, social-emotional, and academic evaluations for children, adolescents, and young adults. He’s here to delve into a conversation about an important topic, psycho-educational assessments; what they are, when they are indicated, and what to do with the results from the assessments. Mark unpacks several aspects of the assessment process, the reasons families would seek these services, and the importance of including children in the process, and shares his expertise on how to work with schools to deliver individualized accommodations and recommendations. He also shares advice on how to deal with parents and students who push back or don’t make use of their accommodations. To hear about all this, and much more, make sure not to miss out on this episode! Thanks for listening. 

Key Points From This Episode:

• [0:01:20] What to expect from today’s episode.
• [0:01:48] More about our guest today, Mark Westerfield.
• [0:03:15] Mark unpacks the process of a psycho-educational assessment.
• [0:04:30] Reasons a family would seek out these types of services.
• [0:07:20] What Mark would advise families to watch for regarding learning disabilities.
• [0:11:00] He delves further into the process behind the tests.
• [0:13:15] How long the process usually takes.
• [0:14:45] The importance of including the child in the process.
• [0:16:40] Mark details what a neuro-psych report includes/looks like.
• [0:18:45] Working with schools on delivering individualized accommodations or recommendations.
• [0:21:50] Advice to parents/ students who aren’t making use of their accommodations.
• [0:23:24] Dealing with parents who are giving push-back on using accommodations.
• [0:26:50] Middle-schoolers and their need to fit in socially.
• [0:28:25] Ideal ages for the different assessments.
• [0:30:40] Dealing with the different reasons parents push back from getting their children assessed.
• [0:36:00] A reminder that all our brains, simply, aren’t the same!

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Mark Westerfield on LinkedIn

Westerfield Psychological Assessment

Sh*t Your Teenagers Won’t Tell You

Sh*t Your Teenagers Won’t Tell You on Instagram