We know there’s a lot to consider when you are trying to understand if a psychological assessment will help, so we’ve put together some of the most frequently asked questions. Alternatively, please reach out via our enquiry form below.
A psychometric measure is a tool used by psychologists and other mental health professionals to quickly gather information about a person’s mental health symptoms.
What makes a psychometric measure different from a general set of questions, is that they have been tested extensively to ensure that they are reliable (i.e., measure what they are measuring consistently) and valid (i.e., have been demonstrated to actually measure what they say they measure).
Responses on psychometric measures are tested on a large representative sample. This provides a normative data set which indicates what the “average” individual scores on the measure, and also what scores should be considered particularly high or particularly low within the population.
Psychometric measures are very useful for making diagnoses as they provide specific information about how an individual compares to their peers.
All psychometric measures used in the Life Matters Child Mental Health Assessment Screeners are of high quality – that is to say that they are reliable and valid and are normed against a large representative sample of the population of interest.
Contact our assessments team by emailing assessments@lifematters.com.au or call (02) 49653530 to book your pre assessment interview, this will ensure your psychologist has all the information needed to recommend which assessment is right for you.
Can I claim a rebate?
A Medicare rebate can apply to some services if they are completed by a clinical or registered psychologist.
Unfortunately, administration of cognitive assessments cannot attract a rebate under Medicare.
Please contact our team for more information on whether you’re able to obtain a rebate on your assessment.
To access a Medicare rebate
You will need to contact your GP to obtain a Mental Health Care Plan. With a MHCP, you are eligible for 10 psychological sessions per calendar year.
To access a Private Health rebate
If you have private health cover you will need to enquire with your provider as to whether your assessment is claimable under your fund.
To access NDIS funding
If you have NDIS funding, and are Plan or Self-Managed, you can forward your NDIS Plan and details through to book assessments.
Following receipt of payment of an Online Assessment Invoice, the assessment links are administered to you via web links in an email. If you are completing assessments for a child, the child’s parent and teacher will complete the assessments.
It is the payee’s responsibility to ensure that all relevant parties complete all assessments. Once the assessments have been completed, the results will be immediately available to us at Life Matters and the assessment results process will begin.
Gathering data from multiple raters (others who measure performance in your child) is advantageous for a number of reasons.
It provides confirmatory evidence, where results are similar between raters and discrepancies between raters, may be informative (e.g., problems with the school environment).
The more data we have, the better we are able to make judgements regarding what is best for your child.
Further, some diagnoses require corroborating evidence from multiple contexts (i.e., home and school) before a diagnosis can be made.
Where a diagnosis is required for funding (e.g., NDIS or other support funding), having multiple sources of evidence helps ensure that the reasoning for the diagnosis is sound.
During a Feedback Session, your psychologist will further refine the recommendations/diagnostic impressions in the report, discuss the assessment results and help to place them in context of the client’s individual circumstances. This may include provision of a diagnosis if clinically indicated. It is also a great opportunity to ask questions of the psychologist. It’s important for our psychologists to interpret the report and read back to you as a whole, in order to understand the ‘big picture’ around your mental health concerns.
Psychologists have a professional responsibility to ensure that psychometric testing results are fully understood by their clients – a feedback session ensures this.
Generally, a report can be processed within 3-4 weeks of receipt of the completed assessments. You will be informed if there is an unexpected delay.
The report will be provided in pdf version after your Feedback Session.
The report will contain the results from all the assessments completed, together with some background information.
For each of the assessments, the scoring will be compared with that of a relevant normative sample. This means for a child, the score will be compared to scores from other children of the same age and sex.
The report will provide some information about what diagnoses may be relevant to you on the basis of the scoring alone. Some general recommendations in different environments and further treatment options will also be provided. If you have a current treating psychologist at Life Matters Psychologists, they will include their observations in the report.
No. There are natural limitations to psychometric measures which mean that they cannot be used in isolation to make a diagnosis.
It is also possible that results on the testing do not point to a diagnosis or do not meet the threshold required for a diagnosis.
The report will provide some recommendations regarding which diagnoses are relevant, but these will need to be confirmed by a suitably qualified health professional (i.e., paediatrician, clinical psychologist, psychiatrist) before a diagnosis is provided. However, scoring on these measures are an essential part of the process of obtaining a diagnosis.
The scoring will be used in conjunction with the health professional’s observations to make a judgement regarding the appropriateness of a diagnosis.
Life Matters Psychologists can offer further testing (after the report is provided) for a competitive price. Results of any further measures can be incorporated into an updated report. Pricing in such cases will be pro-rated on a case by case basis.
How useful was this post?
Click on a star to rate it!
Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0
No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.