Contact Me
I see clients at my office in San Francisco's Presidio Heights neighborhood. I am able to offer home visits at no extra fee when transportation is a challenge, or if the client feels more comfortable in a home environment.
Assessment & Options
Dr. Patti Weiss, PhD provides comprehensive evaluations and treatment services for children, adolescents and adults at her San Francisco office. Her assessment process begins with a thorough initial consultation, where she reviews the individual's history, academic (or work, if adult) performance, and current challenges both at home and school (and work, if adult).
The evaluation process typically spans 2-3 sessions of 2 to 2.5 hours each, a total of anywhere from 4 to 6 hours total, of testing, and includes standardized cognitive and psychological assessments, and detailed questionnaires completed by parents if the individual is a child or teen. Dr. Weiss utilizes the gold-standard Wechsler cognitive scale (WISC-V for up to 16, WAIS-V for 16 and over) method to measure Verbal Comprehension, Visual Spatial Ability, Fluid Reasoning, Working Memory (auditory and visual) and Processing Speed: i.e. five domains, 10 subtests, two in each domain. She also may observe younger children in their classroom, if recommended by the school.
Dr. Weiss, after administering the Wechsler Intellingence Scale (WAIS-V for 16 plus or WISC-V for through age 6-15), for the second session,completes the mandatory measures for accommodations, for both school tests and Standardized Tests:
The Woodcock Johnson IV, and the V (fifth edition) just was released and will be used in the next month or so:
This is a group of 10 core subtests; seven untimed tasks of Writing, Reading, Math and Spelling. The last 3/10 are timed: Sentence Reading Fluency (3 minutes),Math Facts Fluency (3 minutes), and Sentence Writing Fluency (5 minutes). This takes roughly one hour. The third and last mandatory measure for all students is the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, Third Edition (WRMT-III). It takes about 40 minutes.
There are 6 untimed tests, and 1 timed task: Five Reading and One Listening Comprehension Test.
This is the second session. If any difficulties have shown up, on the measures, there are some optional measures Dr. Weiss may administer:
For ADHD:
The Test of Variables of Attention on my laptop (aka the TOVA-8). 21.6 minutes.
And the CaT-C questionnaires for the student, parents and teachers.
For Receptive Auditory Processing difficulties:
The Test of Auditory Processing Skills, Fourth Edition aka TAPS-IV.
That takes 35 minutes.
If there are psychological/emotional issues, Dr. Weiss may administer the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Rorschach Ink Blot Test, The Rotter Incompleete Sentence Blanks (Middle/High school; College or Adult versions), and the Beck Youth Inventories, Second Edition. One last measure is the Psychological Inventory (PAI-A for Adolescents, PAI for adults: 244 questions for teens, 344 for adults).
After the testing, Dr. Weiss scores the material at her home office, and writes up the report, often ranging from 18 to 36 pages, depending on the depth needed for that particular assessment. Included are all the results, background information/history, diagnosis, recommendations, and especially accommodations at school or work , depending on the age of the individual.