Neuroaffirming Assessments for Children & Youth
(coming April 2025)
☆JOIN WAITLIST☆
We provide neuroaffirming assessments that help parents, caregivers, and educators gain a deeper understanding of their child’s unique strengths, challenges, and learning needs. Our approach is designed to offer clarity, validation, and practical next steps — without pathologizing neurodivergence.
We specialize in identifying Autism, PDA (Pathological/Protective Demand Avoidance), ADHD, giftedness/2e in kids and youth who are high-masking, hard-to-spot, “atypically” presenting, and who internalize their traits.
What is a Neuroaffirming Assessment?
A neuroaffirming assessment respects and validates neurodivergence rather than treating it as something to "fix."
Our approach:
Identifies your child’s strengths and challenges
Recognizes that differences in learning, attention, and processing are natural variations, not deficits
Provides insights and practical approaches that help children thrive at home, in school, and in daily life
Identifies root causes of behaviour in order to avoid surface-level strategies
Offers practical, personalized recommendations that align with your child’s needs and your values
We believe an assessment should be empowering for both your child and your family.
Why Pursue an Assessment for Your Child?
Seeking an assessment can help:
Provide a clearer picture of your child's abilities and challenges
Identify what supports may help your child thrive at home and school
Help with self-understanding and confidence for your child
Access accommodations for education or extracurriculars
Clarify overlapping traits (e.g., ADHD vs. giftedness)
If you’re on the fence about pursuing an assessment, check out my blog post on this topic - the pros and cons, and when to/not to pursue a formal diagnosis.
Our Assessments
We currently offer:
Psychoeducational Assessments (Psych Ed) – Comprehensive evaluations of learning profiles, cognitive strengths, and challenges with tailored recommendations for home and school. Includes testing for ADHD, social emotional wellbeing, gifted, specific learning disability (e.g., dyslexia, other LDs).
ADHD Assessments – Focused evaluations of attention, executive functioning, and self-regulation, with personalized strategies for home and school, and an emphasis on the unique strengths of the ADHD brain.
Gifted Assessments – Focused evaluations of cognitive abilities to identify giftedness, understand asynchronous development, and uncover learning needs, with tailored recommendations to support engagement and growth in both home and school settings.
If you're completing this assessment for admission to a school or academic program, please make sure to let us know during the intake session if the school has asked for or requires any additional subtests or measures.
Autism Assessments that include an ADHD assessment and PDA exploration (Coming Soon!)
Combined Assessments - Psych Ed + Autism + ADHD (Coming Soon!)
☆JOIN WAITLIST☆
Assessment Process
Every assessment starts with a free 15-minute virtual consultation where we discuss your concerns and what you hope to learn from the assessment. It’s also a chance for you to ask any questions and see if this feels like a good fit. You can book this here.
♡
You may decide to pursue an informal screening session beforehand, especially if you are travelling for the assessment. The information you get from this screening may inform whether or not a formal assessment will be supportive for your child and your family. You can book this here.
♡
If you decide to move forward, you'll complete an online questionnairre covering your child’s background, including medical, developmental, academic, social, emotional, and behavioral history.
♡
Next, we’ll have a 90-minute intake session to explore things in depth. We’ll discuss your child’s strengths, challenges, and any relevant history. This helps set the foundation for the assessment by gathering key details about developmental milestones, learning patterns, social interactions, emotional well-being, physical health, and behavioral patterns. Ryan may also provide questionnaires for teachers or other caregivers to complete. These additional perspectives help create a well-rounded understanding of how your child shows up in different settings.
♡
We’ll then schedule the testing sessions, which vary in length depending on the type of assessment.
♡
Once all the information is collected, we will analyze the results and put together a detailed report. While we may need to use language that seems to take a “medical model” view of neurodiversity, our recommendations will be shared through a neuroaffirming and strengths-based lens.
♡
We’ll then meet for a 2-hour feedback session to go over the findings, answer any questions, and review recommendations to ensure they’re a good fit for your child’s needs.
♡
After that meeting, Ryan will finalize the report and provide you with a signed copy.
♡
If you experience barriers with any of these steps (we realize that there are a lot!) we have options to accommodate executive functioning and/or communication differences/challenges/preferences.
Investment
Gifted - $1,500 - reduced fee if results don't meet gifted criteria
ADHD - $1,750
Psychoeducational Assessment - $2,750 - includes testing for ADHD, social emotional wellbeing, gifted, specific learning disability (e.g., dyslexia, other LDs)
Autism - $3,000 - includes testing for ADHD and PDA*
Autism + Psych Ed - $3,500 - includes testing for Autism, ADHD, social emotional wellbeing, PDA*, gifted, specific learning disability (e.g., dyslexia, other LDs)
*While we cannot diagnose PDA, we can include it in the report as a profile with recommendations
Next Steps
Get on Our Assessment Waitlist - We will contact you with next steps!
Book a Free Consultation (optional) – Let’s discuss your concerns and whether an assessment is the right fit for your child.
Book an Informal Screening Session (optional) - see if a formal assessment will be supportive for your child and your family. Contact kerry@kerryschroeder.ca if you don’t find any open spots in the calendar.
Book the Assessment - we will reach out to you with details and dates after you join our waitlist or contact kerry@kerryschroeder.ca
Complete Intake Forms – We’ll send these to you, to gather relevant history and background information. We are happy to offer accommodations if this step is tricky.
Attend the Assessment Sessions – Our assessments are low-pressure, and tailored to your child’s needs.
Receive Your Child’s Report & Personalized Recommendations – Gain practical insights, guidance, and neuroaffirming recommendations for home, school, and beyond to support their growth.
Ready to Get Started? Book a consultation here.