Jennifer Linton Reesman, PhD, ABPP

The process begins before any testing takes place. Available records are reviewed in advance, including prior evaluations, school documents, and relevant medical or developmental history. This allows the initial session to build on existing information rather than requiring families to restate the full history from the beginning.

Families often come in with a sense that something is not fully explained, even if the exact concern is difficult to define. A child may be performing inconsistently at school despite clear signs of ability in other areas. A pediatrician may have raised questions about attention, development, or learning. In other cases, families may have received different explanations from multiple clinicians without a clear sense of which direction best fits the overall picture. The evaluation is structured to address the specific concern that brought the family in, rather than a generalized set of assumptions.

Testing is designed to clarify how a person is thinking, learning, and functioning across different domains, with attention to both strengths and areas of difficulty. The goal is to understand not only whether there is a diagnosable condition, but how that profile appears in real-life settings such as school performance, daily routines, or workplace demands.

Once the evaluation is complete, findings are organized into a comprehensive report that is typically completed within approximately two weeks. The process concludes with a feedback session that focuses on explanation and interpretation rather than simply delivering results. Families are walked through what was found, how it connects to their concerns, and what steps may be helpful moving forward, so the evaluation becomes something usable rather than something to interpret alone.