ABSTRACT
Standards for psychoeducational evaluations specify that the scope of assessment should determine relative contributions of difficulties in cognitive functioning, psychosocial development, and adaptive behavior to specific problems in learning. Although inclusions of psychological and behavioral measures are critical to performing a comprehensive psychological assessment, Rothstein and colleagues noted that psychological and neuropsychological explanations are rarely integrated. Rothstein and colleagues recommended that evaluations attempt to highlight the psychological complexities and nuances of learning disorders and highlighted the way in which learning disorders covary with, and infuse, psychological conflicts and behavioral problems. This was the type of reasoning to understand the complicating background factors underlying Joelle’s referral for a comprehensive and psychodynamically-informed psychoeducational assessment. The lesson learned again from this kind of evaluation was to help parents and the school view behaviorally or learning disordered children and adolescents as more than the sum of their processing, learning, or behavioral symptoms.
