Services

Comprehensive Evaluations

• Intake Interview: The clinical interview is designed to obtain detailed information regarding the client’s developmental, medical, academic, psychological, and social history. At the end of your intake appointment, your clinician will provide parent/caregiver and teacher rating scales that can be completed outside of the office setting.
• Record Review: We complete a thorough review of any records provided to us (e.g., previous evaluations, IEPs, 504 Plans, etc.).
• Classroom Observation: If deemed appropriate (based on child’s age and referral questions), we will complete a classroom observation to provide a window into the child’s behavior in a more natural setting, and to help guide educational recommendations.
• Testing Sessions: Our flexible testing schedules are tailored to the needs of the client. The testing process typically includes two to three testing appointments (approximately two to three hours each). If an additional testing session is recommended to ensure that all referral questions are sufficiently answered, no additional charge is applied.
• Contact with Other Professionals: Drs. Novak and Pontarelli believe that it is imperative to obtain the perspective of professionals who work with the client on a regular basis. As such, with the family’s permission, we will engage in phone consultations with outside providers.
• Feedback Session: Approximately one to two weeks after testing is complete, we will provide a feedback session to verbally share the findings of the evaluation with the family.
• Written Report: A written report will follow shortly after the feedback session, which strives to provide an easy-to-read, streamlined report of the data and next steps. We aim to highlight individual strengths, areas of growth, and targeted recommendations to help clients and their families navigate future educational and treatment decision-making.
• Referrals: We have developed relationships with providers in many fields across the Chicagoland area to help connect our families with appropriate referrals for any recommended follow-up services.

Assessment Areas

• Executive Functioning: Sustained and focused attention, impulse control, organization, planning, self-monitoring, and flexible thinking
• Memory and Learning: Acquiring new concepts, long-term retention, verbal and visual memory skills 
• Sensory-Motor Functioning: Visual perception, fine-motor coordination, and sensory regulation
• Language Skills: Receptive and expressive language fundamentals, oral comprehension, phonological awareness, social language and problem-solving
• Academic Achievement: Reading decoding and fluency, reading comprehension, math computation and applied problem-solving, spelling, written expression, annotating and study skills
• Social Skills: Reading social cues, making inferences, forming and maintaining friendships
• Emotional Functioning: Frustration tolerance, coping skills, anxiety, mood regulation, personality style
• Giftedness: Twice-exceptionalism, IQ testing for private school admissions

School Advocacy

After an evaluation is complete, we remain available to attend school staffings with clients and/or their families. At these meetings, we share the findings of our evaluation and utilize our data, in combination with data obtained at the school, to advocate for the student’s educational needs. The fee for attendance to these meetings is not included in the initial evaluation fee and will be billed at our standard rates for both meeting and travel time.

Consultation

We are happy to provide additional consultative services with our clients and their families outside of the evaluation process (i.e., four weeks after client receipt of final evaluation report or independent of any evaluation with our practice). These services might include discussing and providing recommendations related to ongoing or new concerns via telephone or email, as well as providing thoughtful analyses of other evaluations, school-based testing, and treatment/intervention plans (e.g., goals for specific therapies, IEPs, and 504 Plans). These services will be billed at our standard hourly rates. We do not provide ongoing crisis management and we will refer families with a need for crisis management to more appropriate providers.