WHAT CAN BE ASSESSED?

Psychological Assessments, Neuropsychological Assessments & Psychoeducational Assessments
are offered to assess the following areas and conditions: Intellectual Ability, Achievement / Learning Difficulties, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, and Depressive Disorders. 

Intellectual Ability:

• Intellectual Giftedness
  Intellectual ability significantly higher than average. Giftedness is a trait that starts at birth and continues throughout the lifespan. 

• Intellectual Disability
  Disability characterised by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning (reasoning learning, problem solving) and in adaptive behaviour, which covers a range of everyday social and practical skills. 

Achievement (Learning Difficulties, Academic Underachievement):

• Dyslexia
  Reading disorder characterised by trouble reading and deficits in spelling and writing despite normal intelligence.

• Dyscalculia
  Difficulty in learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, and learning facts in mathematics. 
  Can occur as the result of some types of brain injury, in which case the proper term is acalculia, to distinguish it from dyscalculia which is of innate, genetic or developmental origin.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders:

• Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
  Chronic condition marked by persistent inattention, hyperactivity, and sometimes impulsivity.  

• Attention-Deficit Disorder (ADD)
  Disorder characterised by excessive activity and inability to concentrate on one task for any length of time.

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
  Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) includes a range of similar conditions, including Asperger syndrome, that affect a person's social interaction, communication, interests and behaviour.

Anxiety Disorders:

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  Anxiety disorder characterised by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear or worry (obsessions), repetitive behaviours aimed at reducing the associated anxiety (compulsions), or a combination of such obsession and compulsions. 

• Generalised Anxiety Disorder
  Excessive worry about a variety of events such as doing well in school, family, friendships, health, world events, etc.

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  Anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening, or distressing events. Someone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt.

• Panic Disorder
  Anxiety disorder that is characterised by sudden attacks of fear and panic. Panic attacks may occur without a known reason, but more frequently they are triggered by fear-producing events or thoughts, such as taking a lift. 

• Phobias
  A phobia is a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it. There are specific / simple phobias and complex (more disabling) phobias.

  • Social phobia (Social Anxiety Disorder) - fear of social situations (complex)

  • Agoraphobia - fear of open spaces and public places where escaping may be difficult (complex)

  • Claustrophobia - fear of confined spaces

  • Animal phobias - such as dogs (cynophobia), spiders (arachnophobia), snakes (ophidiophobia) or rodents (musophobia)

  • Environmental phobias - such as heights (acrophobia), deep water (aquaphobia) and germs (mysophobia)

  • Situational phobias - such as visiting the dentist (dentophobia) or flying (aerophobia)

  • Bodily phobias - such as blood (hemophobia), vomit (emetophobia) or having injections (trypanophobia)

Depressive Disorders:

• Major Depressive Disorder
  Mental disorder characterised by a pervasive and persistent low mood that is accompanied by low self-esteem and by a loss of interest of pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. 

• Persistent Depressive Disorder
  Also known as Dysthymia. Mood disorder consisting of the same cognitive and physical problems as in Major Depressive Disorder, with less severe but longer-lasting symptoms.

• Bipolar Disorder
  Also known as manic depression. A mental illness that brings severe high and low moods and changes in sleep, energy, thinking, and behaviour. People who have Bipolar Disorder can have periods in which they feel overly happy and energised and other periods of feeling very sad, hopeless, and sluggish. 
  Bipolar I: manic episodes (more severe), Bipolar II: hypomanic episodes (milder)

• Cyclothymic Disorder
  Also known as Cyclothymia. Mild form of Bipolar Disorder. Cyclothymia symptoms alternate between emotional highs and lows. The highs of cyclothymia include symptoms of an elevated mood (hypomanic symptoms). The lows consist of mild of moderate depressive symptoms. Symptoms are similar to those of Bipolar I or II Disorder, but they're less severe.