Parenting for Preschool & Elementary School Ages
Parenting Support Grounded in Developmental Insight
Preschool and elementary years are a time of rapid growth. Children are learning to meet the demands of school, their social world, and family life, all while growing new skills and forming their sense of self.
To make sure our parenting services start from a thoughtful and accurate understanding of your child, our parenting services usually begin with a brief developmental assessment conducted by a psychologist.
This assessment provides a meaningful snapshot of your child’s developmental profile. Understanding this profile helps us identify the kinds of strategies, environments, and supports that are most likely to be helpful for your child right now. The evaluation is not diagnostic and is not meant to offer a complete picture. It can, however, inform whether a more comprehensive diagnostic evaluation with our team would be appropriate. If your child has already had an evaluation, we can review this in lieu of an assessment with us.
By grounding our work in this developmental context, we can offer parenting guidance that is aligned, responsive, and relevant to your goals for your child.
Our approach is unique to Child and Teen Solutions
What makes our approach unique is that your child’s first step is guided by a licensed psychologist with specialization in developmental assessment. This allows us to offer a level of developmental understanding that is not typically available in standard parenting support services. By understanding your child’s needs with greater depth and nuance, we can tailor our parenting services in ways that truly fit their developmental profile.
FAQ’s About Brief Developmental Evaluations
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Typically, we will see the child for a single 1-1/2 to 2-hour office visit. The focus is on assessing cognitive abilities using the Wechsler tests of intelligence. This assessment gives us a window into a child’s strengths and vulnerabilities. For example, it allows us to better understand a child’s verbal thinking and expression as well as visual problem solving. Although the scores can be informative, the richness lies in the qualitative observations. Through this process, we might better understand how the child copes with novel demands, manages frustration, and persists through challenges. We also often learn about the child’s mental stamina and self-regulation capacity. Observations might also yield clues as to whether it might be worthwhile to puruse a more in-depth assessment to explore challenges such as an attention deficit disorder, learning disorder, or autism spectrum disorder. Or, whether more assessment is needed to better understand the child’s needs for behavioral or social-emotional supports.
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A brief evaluation provides a snapshot of your child’s functioning, but it is not usually sufficient to yield a diagnosis or form a basis for seeking educational accommodations.
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The cost is based on the total time that the child is seen, time spent scoring the results, and the write-up. Typically, the process takes two to three hours of the provider’s time. Please see your provider’s rate schedule for their hourly evaluation rate.
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Comprehensive evaluations are our most specialized service, and what we’re best known for at CATS. A comprehensive evaluation may take 15 to 20 hours of the providers’ time in total. The process includes formal testing of cognitive abilities, academic functioning, social functioning, and mental health/ emotional functioning. The process may also involve a school observation, review of home videos, and informant (e.g., teacher) interviews. This is an in-depth process conducted over two to three morning appointments and is designed to provide a thorough understanding of your child’s strengths and vulnerabilities across multiple domains. These assessments can help to clarify if a diagnosis may be appropriate, and to inform intervention needs/ treatment planning. Please inquire directly to learn about this process in more detail.
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In some cases, the psychologist who evaluates your child may be the same provider who will see you for parenting services. Often, the parenting provider may be a different psychologist or therapist on our team.
Child and Teen Solutions (CATS) is a mental health clinic based in Seattle, Washington. We are staffed by psychologists and therapists who specialize in children, teens, young adults, and parent coaching. We offer both in-person and telehealth services. Our office is located in the Madison Park neighborhood, near Lake Washington.
