Psychological Assessments for children and adults

How can a psychological assessment help?

Psychological assessments at SPELD SA help to answer two questions:

1. What is causing my child’s difficulties with learning?

2. What strategies will be helpful?

A psychological assessment will identify individual learning strengths and weaknesses. It will also determine whether a learning disorder such as Dyslexia, Dyscalculia or Dysgraphia, or Intellectual Developmental Disorder is present. You can talk to our team to find out whether this may be appropriate for you or whether an educational consultation or intervention may be the appropriate first step.

We can provide assessments for young people of all backgrounds up to the age of 25 years, including primary and secondary school students, students in home schooling, university students, and people with disabilities.

Online assessments

New appointments are now available for online psychological assessments. These assessments are carried out remotely via secure video conferencing by a registered psychologist and can be completed from home or, where supported, from school. Please see the fact sheet for more information.

The assessment process

There are several parts to the process.

1. Pre-assessment questionnaire: 
This quick questionnaire is used to check that our service is a good fit for what you need. If we feel that another service would be more appropriate, we will talk to you about your options.


2. Appointment: 
We will speak to you about appointment times. In periods of high demand, appointments can be 4-6 months in advance. To assist our families, we have a waitlist available to take last-minute cancellations.
Please let us know if you would like to register.


3. Invoice and Deposit:
On confirmation of your appointment, we will send you an invoice and a request for a deposit. The deposit must be paid in 48 hours to secure your booking.


4. Detailed background questionnaire:  
When your appointment time is confirmed, we will send electronic forms and questionnaires for you to complete.

These must be completed two weeks prior to your assessment date.


5. Testing:
The testing usually takes 2.5 to 3.5 hours. In most cases, the testing is completed in 2 consecutive sessions, separated by a 20-minute break. In most cases, the tests focus on:

- Cognitive Processes 
(including phonological awareness, working memory, intellectual abilities, and in some cases language processing and attention), and

- Academic Skills 
relevant to the current concerns (e.g. reading, writing, and mathematical skills).

Please note that an additional session may need to be booked (at additional cost) if more than three academic skill areas need to be assessed.

6. Feedback meeting:  
We will meet with you immediately after the testing sessions to talk about the test results, answer your questions, and help you consider the options for next steps.

7. Report:  
We will send you a report (as a password-protected PDF file) approximately four to six weeks after the assessment. This will be written in clear, accessible language that summarises test results, provides formal diagnoses (if appropriate), and also details recommendations, strategies, and/or resources. 

What do I need to do before undergoing a psychological assessment?

Before a diagnosis of a Specific Learning Disorder (such as Dyslexia) can be made it is important that a vision and hearing test is conducted to ensure another condition is not impacting learning. It is also essential that the person being assessed has received at least six months of targeted literacy and/or numeracy intervention. For more information on targeted intervention refer to the Auspeld guide below.

What if additional testing is needed?

In most cases, our standard battery of tests is all that is needed. However, we identify that additional specialised testing may be helpful to get a full understanding of the challenges and support needs. If this is the case, we will discuss this with you. We will also let you know if there would be additional fees. Different decisions are right for different families, and whatever you decide, we will respect your wishes.