Walk with Love: Clinical Psychological Service for Children and Families - Psychological Assessment Service

Psychological Assessment Service

1.　Comprehensive Professional Assessment

Our clinical psychologists have received professional training in assessing children, including their learning potential and academic ability, social-emotional development, and psychological and behavioral disturbances. Assessment tools adopted in the service are evidence-based and tailored to children's needs.

2.　Specific Professional Assessment (Remark 1)

2.1　Learning Potential and Academic Ability

Every child is unique, with his or her own learning capacity, interest, strengths, disadvantages, and aspirations. To unleash children's full potential, parents have to recognise their uniqueness in learning and offer the most suitable kinds of support to meet their individual needs.

If you notice that your child has the following conditions and are concerned about that, you may consider arranging a learning potential and academic ability assessment as shown in the table below for your child:

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• Being less able to learn compared to peers of the same age, showing remarkable difficulties in self-care activities and social communication
• Having difficulties in writing, spelling, and reading comprehension, e.g., children with special learning disorder

2.2　Social-emotional Development

Social-emotional development begins early in life and continues to develop in the adolescent years. Since birth, children have communicated with the world through grinning and gurgling. They come to learn to interact with others by expressing their feelings constructively and regulating their strong emotions and behaviors.

Concerning the individual differences in socio-emotional development, some children are introverted and tend to hide their feelings. Some like to depend on their parents, and can be anxious about being separated from them and being on their own. Others may enjoy solitude, seldom engage in social activities, and are often misunderstood by their peers. Some children may be grumpy. They may experience an emotional rollercoaster and may vent out their feelings uncontrollably and aggressively.

If you notice that your child has the following conditions and are concerned about that, you may consider arranging a socio-emotional development assessment as shown in the table below for your child:

• Internalising conditions
  • Feeling nervous, worried, and fearful
  • Feeling moody, depressed, and irritable
  • Long-term grief

• Externalising conditions
  • Being annoyed by others easily, having temper tantrums and anger outbursts frequently, and acting aggressively
  • Arguing a lot with adults and showing defiant behaviors

Healthy social-emotional development is valuable for children to cope with the abovementioned internalising and externalising conditions. On the one hand, effective emotion regulation is rooted in children's ability to recognise emotions accurately and to understand and express their feelings properly. On the other hand, living in a social world, it is essential for children to step into others' shoes and to understand others' feelings and perspectives for having and maintaining positive interactions with others. Parents may understand children's ability in emotion recognition and perspective taking with the Assessment for Emotional and Interpersonal Understanding and Advanced Assessment for Emotion Identification and Social Cognition.

2.3　Psychological and Behavioral Disturbances

Children face a host of challenges in their daily life, stemming from their ongoing physical and psychological development as well as environmental changes. Owing to inherent and/or environmental factors, some children may encounter great difficulty dealing with these challenges, which may affect their emotions, behaviours, personality development, and social development significantly. Early identification and intervention are beneficial for supporting these children and their families to overcome their difficulties.

If you notice that your child has the following conditions and are concerned about that, you may consider arranging a psychological and behavioral disturbances assessment as shown in the table below for your child:

• Being distracted easily, having trouble concentrating, being impulsive and overly active, e.g., children with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder
• Having difficulty initiating social interaction and engaging in group activities, being rigid, e.g., children with autistic spectrum disorder
• Showing symptoms of emotional disorder consistently, having suicidal ideation or self-harm behaviours, and/or facing self-identity issues

Remarks:

• Remark 1: At the beginning of a psychological assessment, the clinical psychologist will interview you and your child and discuss with you the recommended psychological assessment service for your child. If a standardised assessment is not recommended, the clinical psychologist will explain your child's condition and provide clinical recommendations according to the information collected in the interview. In this case, no summary report of the assessment will be provided. The provided service will be charged according to the charges of "Psychological Analysis Assessment".
• Remark 2: An additional cost of HKD$2,500 will be charged if a detailed written assessment report (in English) is requried.
• Remark 3: Clinical psychologist will provide a 30-minute feedback session for free within a month after completing the assessment, together with the free summary report and the referral letter (if required).
• Remark 4: "Psychological Analysis Assessment" is charged in a 15-minute unit. Assessments that take less time are rounded up to 15 minutes.