Psychological testing & evaluation
When attention, learning, mood, behavior, or a diagnosis has become hard to make sense of, a careful evaluation can show what is actually driving the difficulty — what is worth doing about it and possible next steps.
Testing usually in person at Haven’s Wesley Chapel office; intake and feedback by video. Ages 8 through 64, across the Tampa Bay area.
When an evaluation may help
An evaluation can be helpful when the question is not only which diagnosis applies, but what explains the pattern — and what information would actually help you decide what to do next.
What we evaluate
The goal is not simply to confirm ADHD. Attention problems are produced by a great many things — anxiety, depression, trauma, poor sleep, an undiagnosed learning disorder, an uneven cognitive profile — and more than one thing can be true at once. No single computerized attention task settles that question. Identifying the challenges, or establishing that several overlap, is the work of the evaluation.
For children from age 8 through college students and adults where it is clinically appropriate. A psychoeducational evaluation clarifies why someone is struggling academically and produces recommendations a family, a school, and a treating clinician can act on.
A score on its own tells a parent very little. What is useful is the shape of the profile: where a child is unusually strong, where that strength is not matched, and what that combination tends to look like day to day. Bright children can also have learning disorders or attention difficulties, and each can hide the other for years.
Haven provides clinically appropriate documentation and recommendations. The decision itself belongs to the receiving institution — a school, a college disability or accessibility office, a licensing or testing organization — and no evaluation can guarantee approval.
This is careful differential work, not an attempt to prove or disprove a particular label. The questions often involve genuine overlap between ADHD, anxiety and depressive disorders, trauma, bipolar-spectrum conditions, and personality features — distinctions that are legitimately difficult and that change what will be most helpful.
Where testing happens
Testing appointments take place at Haven’s office in Wesley Chapel. Some parts of an evaluation can be completed remotely where that is clinically appropriate, where the measure supports it, and where your clinician is authorized to practice in the state you are in.
Clients travel from Wesley Chapel, Lutz, Land O’ Lakes, Zephyrhills, New Tampa and the wider Tampa Bay area.
Get Directions to HavenAssessment is more than a test score
A psychological evaluation is an integration, not an administration. Scores are one input among several: a clinical interview, developmental and educational history, medical and mental-health history, relevant records, behavioral observations, standardized measures, and — where it is clinically indicated — information from a parent, teacher, or partner. The work is in reconciling all of that into an account that holds together.
Which measures are used depends on the person and the question in front of us: age, presenting concerns, history, any previous testing, what the situation requires by way of documentation, and what emerges as the evaluation proceeds. Not everyone receives every kind of measure. A battery that is right for one client doesn’t necessarily fit another, and an evaluation designed by habit rather than by question tends to produce a report that doesn’t truly answer the question. Where anything could affect the accuracy of results, validity is considered directly rather than assumed.
What the process looks like
A free 15-minute consultation about what you are hoping to understand, before anything is scheduled. It is enough to tell whether an evaluation looks appropriate, whether a fuller assessment intake should be scheduled, or whether something else — therapy, for instance — would be a better next step.
A clinical interview covering developmental, educational, medical, and mental-health history — how the difficulty has developed and what has already been tried.
Previous testing, school reports, and relevant medical records; and where it is clinically useful, information from a parent, teacher, or partner.
The measures selected for your referral question, often across more than one appointment. What gets administered follows from what is being asked.
Scoring and interpretation, then the actual work: reconciling everything into a written report, with conclusions supported by the assessment findings.
A session to go through the findings in plain language, and to talk through what the recommendations mean and what to do with them.
Only the testing itself has to happen in person. The intake and the feedback session can both be held by video if that is easier. Testing is often scheduled across more than one appointment; how many depends on the referral question and the measures it calls for.
What you receive
What a report cannot do is make a third party’s decision. Schools, colleges, and testing organizations each apply their own criteria, and the recommendations in an evaluation are exactly that.
Fees
Psychological evaluations are offered on a private-pay basis rather than billed as an in-network service. Working outside insurance authorization means an evaluation can be built around the question that actually needs answering rather than around what an insurer has pre-approved — and that we can be straightforward with you about cost from the beginning.
You will have the anticipated fee in writing before the evaluation begins. Further testing is a conversation before it is ever a charge.
We provide a superbill you can submit. Some plans reimburse part of an evaluation and some carry no out-of-network benefit at all, so it is worth checking with yours first.
This applies to evaluation only. Several Haven therapists do participate with insurance plans — the fees and insurance page sets out who takes which type.
Meet the evaluator
A psychologist whose work centers on psychological assessment—understanding what is actually driving a difficulty when the answer is not obvious.
Dr. Rogers-Wood brings an additional perspective to assessment through her work in psychological test development. Alongside evaluating clients directly, she has worked on the science behind how psychological measures are built, standardized, interpreted, and turned into tools psychologists can use responsibly, including technical and normative work and the training of clinicians in their use.
Common questions
Testing is one part of an evaluation. “Testing” refers to the standardized measures themselves; the evaluation is the whole process — the interview, the history, the records, the observations, the measures, and the interpretation that reconciles them into an answer. A set of scores with no interpretation is not an evaluation, and it is the interpretation that makes the results useful.
Yes. Adults are a substantial part of this service. Many adults seek an evaluation after years of managing, often when responsibilities increase and the strategies that used to work stop working — or after a diagnosis given quickly in adolescence that was never examined. Adult evaluations also frequently involve sorting ADHD from anxiety, depression, trauma, and sleep difficulties, which can look similar from the outside.
Evaluations are offered from age 8 through 64. Outside that range we would rather say so plainly than take a referral we are not set up to answer well, and the administrative team is glad to help identify other options: (813) 438-4701.
Yes, from age 8 through adolescence. These evaluations usually include information from school as well as from home, because attention difficulties often present differently in the two settings and the difference itself is informative.
Yes, including cognitive evaluation for gifted program questions and placement decisions. The evaluation is designed to explain a child’s cognitive profile in context rather than to produce a single number, and it can also identify a learning disorder or attention difficulty sitting alongside high ability.
Yes. Psychoeducational evaluation covers Specific Learning Disorder in reading, written expression, and mathematics, including dyslexia and, where indicated, phonological processing. Cognitive ability and academic achievement are assessed together so that the relationship between them is visible.
Yes. We can provide clinically appropriate documentation and recommendations for college and graduate disability or accessibility offices, and for professional and licensing examinations. Each institution applies its own criteria and makes its own decision, so we cannot guarantee that a particular accommodation will be approved.
It depends on the referral question and the measures involved, so this is answered specifically rather than generally — you will be given an expected timeline along with the written estimate, before the evaluation begins. Testing is often scheduled across more than one appointment.
No, and it should not. Sometimes the findings support a diagnosis clearly. Sometimes they rule one out, which is often just as useful. Sometimes the most accurate answer describes a pattern — a cognitive profile, a set of executive-functioning difficulties, an emotional factor — that does not amount to a diagnostic label but does explain what has been happening and points to what would help.
Testing appointments usually take place at Haven’s office in Wesley Chapel, and for most evaluations that is how the measures are administered. Some parts of an evaluation can be completed remotely where that is clinically appropriate, where the measure supports it, and where your clinician is authorized to practice in the state you are in. The intake interview and the feedback session can both be held by video if that suits you better, so for most people the trip to Wesley Chapel is limited to the testing itself.
Clients travel from across Pasco County, from New Tampa, and from the wider Tampa Bay area. An evaluation is a finite piece of work rather than a weekly commitment, which makes the drive a different calculation from ongoing therapy.
No. You can ask about an evaluation directly. Many people are referred by a therapist, pediatrician, psychiatrist, or school, and those referrals are welcome, but none is required.
Evaluations are offered on a private-pay basis and are not billed as an in-network service. This applies to psychological evaluation specifically — several Haven therapists do participate with insurance plans for therapy, and the fees and insurance page sets out which clinicians take which plans.
Psychological evaluations at Haven are offered on a private-pay, out-of-network basis, and payment is made directly to Haven. We can provide a superbill with the information you may need to submit a claim to a commercial insurance plan for possible out-of-network reimbursement.
Coverage for psychological testing varies considerably by plan, and reimbursement is not guaranteed, so we would encourage you to check directly with your insurer before scheduling if reimbursement is important to you.
Not at this time. Comprehensive autism evaluation is not part of this service, and we would rather say so plainly than take a referral we are not set up to answer well. Where autism-specific assessment is what is needed, we are glad to help identify other options in the area.
If you are not sure where to start
Tell us what you are hoping to understand. A free 15-minute consultation is often enough to work out whether a Haven evaluation is the right next step — or to point you toward something that fits better.
