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When you contact the ONPC, you will be booked for a 50 minute intake appointment with one of our specially trained clinicians. This is your opportunity to let our team know what you have been experiencing that has led you to seek treatment and what your goals are. We will spend this time getting to know you, gather information about your symptoms/experiences, history, and indicators of brain arousal patterns. Together this information will allow us to give you feedback at the end of the session about whether you are a good candidate for psychotherapy, neurotherapy and whether any further assessments may be beneficial. This is also your opportunity to ask questions and learn more about all of our services. If after this session, you want to proceed, we will guide you to the next assessment or treatment steps. This can include a QEEG mapping if you are interested in neurotherapy, psychodiagnostic assessment if you are seeking clarification about your symptom patterns, or directly to a clinician for psychotherapy if this form of treatment is more suited to your needs.
A Quantitative Electroenecephalograph (QEEG) is an extensive analysis of an individual’s cortical activity used to help us understand brain function, arousal and pathways. During the QEEG acquisition, you will come into the office for one hour so we can place a cap with EEG sensors on your head to acquire the digitized EEG. This EEG is the a multi-electrode, multi-channel measurement of your cortical activity that we utilize when completing our statistical analyses. We analyze your raw EEG (e.g., looking for EEG phenomenon that could contribute to your symptoms, such as beta spindling associated with anxiety), compare your brain functioning to a ‘normative’ database, as well as to evaluate your individual EEG ratios (e.g., theta:beta ratios that can help understand ADHD), neural pathways (e.g., important for concussions and autism spectrum disorder) and EEG morphology. All of this information is used to help us understand the underlying brain function that could be contributing to your identified symptoms. Taking all of this information with the history you provided us during your intake consultation, we will collaboratively form a treatment plan with you during the feedback session. You have the option to receive your QEEG results in the feedback session verbally or with the addition of a written report (6-10 page write up of the results with corresponding photos of your brain).
At the ONPC, the clinical psychologists offer a variety of assessments, including psychodiagnostic, trauma/PTSD, psychoeducational, medical-legal, return-to-work, and MVA assessments. Assessments can be offered by an individual psychologist or offered as a multidisciplinary team (such as with psychoeducational assessments). The ONPC stands apart from other assessment clinics because we offer integrated QEEG data for all of our psychological assessments. This allows the assessing clinician to integrate data from the client’s report, objective psychological testing, as well as EEG information, providing detailed conclusions regarding diagnoses and treatment options. If you want to know more information about the benefits of a comprehensive psychological assessment, the process, and the associated fees, feel free to contact the clinic.
Do you worry that your child may have a learning disability, ADD/ADHD or an intellectual delay? Are they having difficulty at school? Would they benefit from accomodation? Do you think they may be depressed or anxious?
A psychoeducational assessment is an in-depth, systematic investigation of strengths and weaknesses in various areas such as cognitive, intellectual, academic, social, emotional, and behavioural functioning. This type of assessment is primarily helping parents and the school understand what may be causing a child difficulties in the school environment, such as whether there is an attentional or learning problem, anxiety, or any other factors. Our psychoeducational assessments are unique in that every assessment includes a QEEG brain map, which is an in-depth analysis of the cortical activity in your child’s brain. Together the psychological testing with the QEEG help our psychologists understand the root cause of your child’s symptoms. The results of the overall psychoeducational assessment will help school-based teams develop educational programs and additional support in order to improve a school-grade individual’s level of educational success. It also can be helpful if your child demonstrates multiple symptoms (e.g., anxiety, attention difficulties, problems listening and following instructions) and you want to understand the root cause so you can choose the best treatment.
How it works: Before we get to know the inner-workings of your child’s brain, we want to personally get to know you and your child! The first step is having you meet with one of our psychologists – it’s a bit like an interview. Typically, the psychologist will spend 60-90 minutes, some of which your child is present, and the remaining with you (the parents). Following this (in the same day or on another day), we book the cognitive, achievement and attention testing. This testing takes approximately four hours and we usually break it up into two sessions so that your child does not fatigue, which can affect the test results.
We then schedule your child to come back for an hour QEEG brain map (an assessment of their brainwaves). We simply place a cap with sensors on your child’s head, which is connected to a computer that reads the electrical signals in the brain. Brain mapping helps us understand exactly what is occurring in the brain and together with the cognitive testing, can help us understand the cause of your child’s difficulties. The QEEG is non-invasive and doesn’t hurt – it looks very similar to an electrocardiogram (ECG) for your heart.
You then come back in approximately four to six weeks for the feedback with the psychologist. They will review the results of the assessment, explain any diagnoses, and provide detailed recommendations for you, your child, the school and treatment/training options.