Evaluations
Benefits of Our Comprehensive Assessment:
- Greater Diagnostic Clarity: Identify ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia, learning disorders, and co-occurring concerns.
- Beyond Symptom Checklists: Hands-on testing shows how you or your child actually processes information, manages attention, and approaches challenging tasks.
- Complete Cognitive and Learning Profile: Understand strengths and needs in reasoning, memory, processing speed, executive functioning, reading, writing, and mathematics.
- Medical and Educational Perspectives: Our interdisciplinary approach addresses clinical diagnoses and school-based needs, including input for IEPs, 504 Plans, and testing accommodations.
- Personalized Next Steps: Receive practical, individualized recommendations for treatment, therapy, school, work, and everyday life.
- Continued Support: Gain a trusted professional resource to help you navigate future educational and developmental needs.
Psycho-Educational Evaluations
A comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation is an in-depth assessment of how a child thinks, learns, remembers, processes information, manages attention, and performs academically. It helps identify strengths and challenges associated with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia, and other learning or developmental differences. Our evaluations are informed by Dr. Ivey’s Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, master’s degree in Literacy Intervention, and more than 20 years of experience as an educational diagnostician, reading specialist, special education teacher, and university literacy professor. This unique background allows her to go beyond scores and labels to explain why a child is struggling and what will genuinely help. Each personalized evaluation typically lasts three to five hours and includes a follow-up consultation, practical recommendations, and thorough documentation supporting appropriate academic and testing accommodations. Most importantly, families are not left to navigate the educational journey alone after receiving the report. Dr. Ivey remains a trusted professional resource as needs change, questions arise, and families advocate for appropriate support throughout their child’s education.
Adult ADHD Evaluations
Our comprehensive adult ADHD evaluation goes beyond interviews, rating scales, and symptom checklists. Using the WAIS-5, D-KEFS, and other carefully selected assessment tools, we observe how you approach hands-on tasks involving attention, working memory, processing speed, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, reasoning, and problem-solving. These performance patterns can show how ADHD affects your functioning in ways questionnaires alone may miss. This approach also helps distinguish ADHD from concerns with overlapping symptoms. Some high-achieving adults come to suspect ADHD and discover that undiagnosed dyslexia (or both ADHD and dyslexia) better explains their lifelong difficulties. You will leave understanding not only whether ADHD is present, but how your brain works, where your strengths lie, and which supports will help you most.
Child Autism Testing
Our comprehensive child autism evaluation is designed to provide much more than a yes-or-no diagnosis. Dr. Elizabeth Ivey combines the ADOS-2, a standardized assessment of social communication and autism-related behaviors, with comprehensive cognitive and academic achievement testing. This allows her to examine how your child reasons, solves problems, remembers and processes information, approaches unfamiliar tasks, and applies those abilities to reading, writing, and mathematics. Achievement testing is important because children with autism may have co-occurring learning difficulties that require separate identification and targeted support. Our interdisciplinary team brings together educational and medical expertise, allowing us to address both a clinical autism diagnosis and the educational implications for school-based eligibility, services, accommodations, and instruction. Families leave with a clearer understanding of their child’s strengths, challenges, learning profile, and practical next steps for support at home, in therapy, and at school.
Adult Autism Testing
Our comprehensive adult autism evaluation is designed for individuals seeking more than a brief screening or simple diagnosis. Dr. Elizabeth Ivey combines the ADOS-2 with a full cognitive assessment, detailed developmental history, questionnaires, and an in-depth exploration of social, sensory, behavioral, and daily-life experiences. The evaluation considers how masking, learned coping strategies, cultural expectations, and strong cognitive abilities may have contributed to autism going unrecognized earlier in life. It also examines whether concerns such as ADHD, anxiety, or cognitive differences may be contributing to or occurring alongside autistic traits.
Beyond Evaluations
Work Related Executive Functioning Support
Our Work-Related Executive Functioning Support begins with a targeted assessment of the cognitive skills adults rely on in the workplace. Through hands-on, performance-based tasks, we examine working-memory processes, processing speed, and executive functions such as attention control, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, planning, and problem-solving. The results help explain why tasks such as prioritizing responsibilities, remembering multistep directions, managing emails, meeting deadlines, shifting between projects, or working efficiently may feel unusually demanding. Dr. Ivey then translates your individual cognitive profile into practical systems for organization, time management, communication, task completion, and managing cognitive load.
College Readiness Support
Our College Readiness Support program begins with a targeted assessment of the cognitive skills students rely on to succeed independently in college. Through hands-on, performance-based tasks, we examine working-memory processes, processing speed, and executive functions such as attention control, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, planning, and problem-solving. These results help students understand how their brains manage information, where tasks may become more demanding, and which strengths they can use to compensate. Dr. Ivey then translates each student’s individual profile into practical strategies for studying, note-taking, test preparation, time management, organization, managing cognitive load, and communicating with professors
Executive Function Coaching
Our Executive Functioning Coaching provides personalized, practical support for children, teens, college students, and adults who struggle with organization, time management, planning, task initiation, working memory, attention, emotional regulation, or cognitive flexibility. Rather than simply telling clients to “try harder” or “be more organized,” Dr. Ivey helps identify the specific executive-function processes creating barriers and develops realistic systems based on each person’s strengths, needs, responsibilities, and daily routines. Coaching uses real school, work, and life demands to teach strategies for breaking down tasks, managing cognitive load, meeting deadlines, maintaining focus, and following through. The goal is to build self-awareness, independence, and sustainable habits that help clients feel more capable and successful in everyday life.
Pre-Literacy Kindergarten Readiness
Our Kindergarten Readiness Program class gives young children a fun, research-based introduction to the foundational skills they need to become successful readers. Through stories, songs, games, movement, and hands-on activities, children build phonological awareness, letter and sound knowledge, vocabulary, oral language, print awareness, listening comprehension, and early writing skills. The class is designed by Dr. Ivey, who holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and a master’s degree in Literacy Intervention and brings extensive experience as a reading specialist, special education teacher, literacy researcher, and university professor of reading education. Children gain important early literacy skills while building the confidence, curiosity, and love of learning they need for a strong start in kindergarten.
Parent Workshops
Our Parent Workshops make complex information about learning, development, and the brain understandable and practical for families. Dr. Elizabeth Ivey helps parents understand not only what their child may be experiencing, but why it is happening and what they can do to help. Available topics include the Science of Reading, kindergarten readiness, dyslexia and dysgraphia, ADHD, autism, executive functioning, working memory, processing speed, cognitive load, homework frustration, school evaluations, accommodations, and preparing students for college. Drawing on her experience as a parent, educational diagnostician, reading specialist, special education teacher and administrator, researcher, and university professor, Dr. Ivey creates a welcoming environment where families can ask questions without judgment. Each workshop provides clear explanations, realistic strategies, and practical tools parents can begin using immediately. Workshops can be customized for schools, churches, parent organizations, community groups, or private events.
School Based Professional Development
Our School Professional Development provides customized, research-based training across literacy, cognition, assessment, special education, and inclusive instruction. Signature topics include Cognitive Load Theory and the Science of Reading, but sessions can also address dyslexia and dysgraphia, ADHD, autism, executive functioning, working memory, processing speed, reading assessment and intervention, MTSS, accommodations, and collaboration between general and special education. Dr. Elizabeth Ivey helps educators understand how cognitive and learning differences appear in real classrooms and how instructional design can either reduce or unintentionally increase student frustration. Teachers learn practical strategies for explicit instruction, scaffolding, building automaticity, supporting attention and memory, interpreting assessment data, selecting interventions, and helping diverse learners access grade-level instruction. Dr. Ivey translates complex research into engaging, understandable training that educators can immediately apply.
IEP and 504 Preparation
IEP and 504 meetings can feel overwhelming, especially when families are expected to understand evaluation scores, school terminology, accommodations, goals, and procedural requirements. Our IEP and 504 Preparation service provides individualized educational consultation before the meeting so parents can participate with greater knowledge and confidence. Dr. Ivey reviews available evaluations, educational records, progress data, and current plans; explains what the information means in understandable language; and helps families identify their most important concerns, questions, and priorities.
