Services currently available through Diagnostic Evaluation & Assessment Services include:
Substance Abuse Assessment – This assessment includes a clinical interview, the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory, a urine drug screen, and a follow up consultation.
Adult Comprehensive Evaluation – This evaluation typically includes a clinical interview, a substance abuse assessment, a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, interviews with collateral sources of information, and a follow up consultation. Additional tests may be added or substituted based on referral questions and client need.
Mental Health Child Abuse Victim Evaluation – This evaluation includes consultation with the Department of Social Services (DSS), parents, child, reviews of the complaints and treatment history, Trauma Symptom Checklist and Child Sexual Behavior Inventory.
Personality, Adaptive/Risk Assessment – This assessment includes three to five assessments, to be chosen based on referral questions and client need. Typically, this will also involve interviews with individuals, family, and other collaterals to understand personality traits, adaptive functioning, and to help identify risk and resiliency factors.
Full Battery Assessment – This assessment includes six to nine assessments, chosen based on referral questions and client needs, as well as interviews with individuals, family, and other collaterals. While the battery will be chosen on an individual basis, this assessment generally includes measures of IQ, adaptive functioning, and mental health diagnosis.
Attachment Assessment – This assessment includes a full battery psychological assessment, plus structured observational techniques and relevant assessment measures to identify the attachment style of a child and/or problems with attaching to primary support people as needed. The focus is on helping the child with a suspected attachment problem, along with the family, in understanding behaviors, and is not meant to take place of a parental-capacity evaluation or for custody determination.
Child Personality Assessment /Truancy Evaluations – This generally includes psychological assessments chosen based on referral questions and client needs, as well as clinical interviews with the client and family members. The focus is on understanding personality styles, cognitive functioning, and recommendations for treatment. Truancy evaluations are generally requested by the courts for youth with excessive school truancy and/or absences. This assessment includes family, individual, and collateral interviews and review of school records.
IQ and Intellectual Abilities Testing (Child and Adult) – This testing includes normed tests to determine level of intellectual abilities, such as tests of intelligence, achievement, and adaptive functioning. The measures used will be chosen based on specific referral questions and client needs.
What do we do?
The Diagnostic process involves the completion of a variety of psychological assessment instruments and clinical interviews. The total time of the evaluation report will vary based on the nature of the referral questions and test batteries used. Services described above are client centered, family focused, strength based, and assist in clarifying the strengths, needs and potential of children, adolescents and adults. Emphasis is placed on providing consistent, comprehensive recommendations that provide guidance for treatment planning and delivery.
Who do we work with?
Children, adolescents and adults for whom there are significant questions regarding their intellectual, emotional, social, behavioral, substance abuse and/or mental health functioning, and for whom it is felt that clarification of the diagnostic picture would improve service planning and delivery. The area of services includes the counties of Giles, Floyd, Montgomery and Pulaski, as well as the City of Radford.
How do I make a referral?
Diagnostic Evaluation Services can be accessed by calling (540) 961-8400. Services may also be directly referred by clinical staff already working with a client, or by other agencies, such as Family Assessment and Planning Teams, various Departments of Social Services, or the court system.