Assessments

 

Do you have a child who is:

  • struggling at home or at school?

  • not meeting the milestones that you or their teachers would expect?

  • having difficulty with learning, behaviour, mood, attention, or social skills?

  • advanced in their learning and wanting some higher challenges out of school?

Or are you an adult who is:

  • having difficulty at home or work, struggling with certain demands like reading, attention, motivation, or social connection?

An assessment can help you get answers to your questions.

What is an assessment?

An assessment can be used to diagnose common conditions such as Specific Learning Disorder, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), or Depressive and Anxiety Disorders, and to identify giftedness.

Whether a diagnosis is appropriate or not, an assessment can help you and your child better understand their profile of strengths and areas of challenge so that they can be best supported at home and at school.

Learn more about the process itself, and what to expect, here.

What’s the benefit of getting an assessment done at upswing?

  • Affordability: Assessments can vary wildly in price. At Upswing, our values include trying to limit barriers as much as possible. In Calgary, psychoeducational assessments are often $3,000 or more - we charge $2,500. All our fees are available in detail here so you can make an informed choice.

  • Accessibility: Our space is wheelchair accessible and our approach is culturally sensitive. Our assessment team has comprehensive education and supervision in providing assessments tailored to every client’s unique needs, including motor or sensory differences.

  • Expert oversight: Our assessment team is led by Dr. Mike Sornberger, an expert in assessment. Dr. Mike has over 15 years of experience in assessment, and nearly a decade of experience teaching graduate courses in assessment. He is the creator of a 40-hour professional development assessment course for the Psychologists’ Association of Alberta, so is involved in training many other assessment psychologists in the province. Starting in Fall 2025, he will also be a member of the College of Alberta Psychologists’ Diagnosis & Assessment Task Force (DATF).
    Every assessment completed at Upswing is either done by Dr. Mike himself, or directly supervised and reviewed by Dr. Mike.

What approaches are available?

  • Psychoeducational: a thorough exploration of a child’s use of verbal and nonverbal reasoning, memory, processing speed, academic performance, and how they’re feeling and engaging socially, emotionally, and behaviourally.

  • Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Diagnosing ASD is a specialized practice, including psychoeducational information plus a thorough evaluation of ASD symptoms.

  • Giftedness: Some academic programs in Calgary, such as the GATE Program and the Westmount Charter School programs, require an intelligence test.

  • Adult Assessment: Sometimes, we may get to adulthood using the survival strategies we’ve built through our lives, but we struggle with unanswered questions about our thinking, learning, and emotions. Assessment can help to potentially identify or diagnose conditions that may have been missed earlier in life.