Appointments: 616.780.0590
Appointments: 616.780.0590
During your appointment, you will mostly be doing school-type activities with an examiner. Some things may be familiar and there will be many new tasks. Don’t worry, you don't need to study for it and most importantly nothing hurts! No shots or anything like that at all!
For example, you may be looking at and talking about pictures, answering questions, doing puzzles, writing, drawing, arranging blocks into patterns, and things like that; sometimes you may use a computer or iPad. Although the day is long (like a school day), none of the tasks take very long. You will spend usually about 10 to 20 minutes on one thing before doing a something else. We have fidget toys, or you may bring your own that you can use during some activities throughout the day.
While you are working, your parents/caregivers will be completing paperwork and/or waiting for you in the waiting room. For older children and teenagers, parents are not required to stay on site the entire day. We can text them when to meet you for lunch and at the end of the testing day if they need to take care of things (e.g., run an errand) during your appointment.
On the day of your evaluation, you will come to the office building for Rush Pediatric Neuropsychology. With your parent’s permission, you may bring a tablet or a toy to play with during breaks.
Toys, tablets, phones, and snacks must stay in the waiting room with parents/caregivers so that they are not a distraction in the testing room. However, bring your water bottle along if you like.
Your parent(s)/guardian(s)/caregiver(s) will bring you to the appointment. Usually (for younger children) the adults talk first prior to your time with the doctor. … just to talk about how you are doing. The doctor wants to know all about your life. When you begin testing, you will be with the examiner. (For very young children and in special circumstances, parents may be in the room for all or some of the testing).
After working for a while (depends on your age), but usually about 45 minutes at a time, you will have a break. During your break, you go back to the waiting room with your parents/caregivers and give your brain a rest – it’s been working hard and you may not have even noticed because a lot of the things you do are fun and some are like games.
Maybe you need a break before it’s time — just say so!
We want you to be comfortable, so if you need to go to the bathroom, get a drink of water or you need a snack, let us know.
No worries! We want you to try your best; that’s all. Sometimes you may not know an answer, that’s ok too, just say so.
We want to have fun and we want you to have fun! We’ll figure out together how to have a good day and get the job done.
It’s a lot like getting ready to go to school, but it will be just you and RPN staff.
The short answer is: To find out more about how your brain works.
The long answer is (an analogy): Have you ever played sports or thought about figuring out what sport you might play? There are so many different kinds of sports…
What if you didn’t know what you’re good at because you’ve never tried all of those sports? Well, you’d have to go out on the field or in the gym and try lots of different things.
You’d have to:
There are many, many different kinds of sports, but you may not know what you’re good at until you try different things. You don’t have to spend a really long time doing each thing, but you do have to try at least a few times.
So, during the day you come for your appointment to Rush Pediatric Neuropsychology, we are going to do a lot of different tasks that exercise different parts of your brain.
All of those things are like different sports for your brain. Let’s work together to find out what your brain does well!