How do I explain to my child why they are being assessed or what to expect during a testing session?

Speaker: Jessica Naecker, PhD, Psychologist, CHC's Catherine T. Harvey Center for Clinical Services

Jessica Naecker, PhD: Hi, my name is Jessica Naecker, and I'm one of the psychologists' at Children's Health Council (CHC). Today's question is how do I explain to my child why they are being assessed or what to expect during a testing session? And that's an excellent question and one that I get all the time. Usually what I tell kiddos is that I'm kind of like a brain detective, and I can be pretty good at figuring out how our brains work because all brains are different. All brains have areas of strength, things that may become easy to us or that we're faster at and all brains also have tricky spots, things that we might be slower at or are more challenging for us. And my job is to get to know their brain's strengths and tricky spots so we can understand their brain the best we can because when we really get to know our brains that helps our teachers teach us best, our parents take care of us the best they can and also can help us feel our best. In terms of what to expect during a session I usually tell kids that I'm lucky because I get to work with them one on one. And during the testing session we'll be doing lots of different activities. Some of them will feel like brain games or puzzles and some of them will feel more familiar to them, things they do in school, like reading, writing or math and that their only job during the testing session is to do their best. And usually I find that that amount of information helps give kids a sense of what we're doing, why we're doing it and what to expect.