Psychological evaluations are conducted for a number of reasons and are designed to answer one or more "referral questions". Typically, the referring party (such as another counselor, the school, parents, a physician, etc.) will work with the psychologist to develop the referral question(s) and the psychologist will select a psychologist test or series of tests to answer that question.

I have developed a particular approach to evaluations that seek to answer questions bout a child's neurocognitive abilities. I have termed this approach the "Integrated Neurodevelopmental Assessment System". This approach involves the collection of information from parents and teachers about a child and incorporating that information with the observations of the clinician and the formal test scores derived through the evaluation to gain an understanding of a child's abilities in a number of areas. This evaluation examines the basic building blocks of cognitive ability, academic success, and emotional adjustment; these are termed Foundational Skills and include consciousness (how alert and engaged the child is with their surroundings), attention and concentration, self-regulation, innate intelligence, processing speed, motor ability, and sensory processing. Elaborated skills are also examined through this type of evaluation and include receptive and expressive language processing for visual and auditory material, visual and auditory short-term and long-term memory, and executive functioning. Finally, social cognition, emotional adjustment, and behavioral functioning are examined.

A sample report for this type of evaluation may be found here (there are two documents - the narrative report and a graph that accompanies the report)