• Services

    Early Childhood Development Evaluations

Early Childhood Development Evaluations

Our program is designed to assess all aspects of early development and identify young children struggling with developmental challenges, including sensory integration or processing issues, speech and motor delays, or social, emotional or behavioral challenges. For example, a child may be having trouble communicating with words or behaving appropriately in large, noisy or highly stimulating environments. They may seem uninterested in peers or show interest but interact in inappropriate or awkward ways. The goal of our early childhood evaluation is to understand the nature of a child’s challenges, clearly describe strengths and weaknesses and guide parents toward appropriate interventions.

Early Childhood Evaluation

The Early Childhood Evaluation program serves children ages one through five and involves a comprehensive neurodevelopmental evaluation. Our evaluation involves testing a child’s cognitive, speech and language, fine motor, adaptive capacities, and emotional and behavioral functioning. In addition, we administer specialized play and social skills assessments to help us understand how your child relates to others and their personal strengths and weaknesses in this area.

Results

We share the results of the evaluation with you in a personal meeting and provide a parent-friendly report that describes your child’s abilities and offers clear recommendations for treatments and, if appropriate, school programming. We are also available to speak with your child’s school or private treatment team to ensure that everyone is on the same page and working collaboratively to support his learning and development.

Treatment

We help guide families toward needed treatments, which may include speech and language therapy, occupational, physical or behavioral therapy, social skills training, or other types of medical interventions. We provide certain treatment services here at CPE Clinic, LLC and can also connect you with reliable professionals in the community.

My pediatrician would like my child to be evaluated developmental delays?  Do you perform those tests and what is the wait time for testing and results?

Early diagnosis and intervention is important with developmental delays, particularly for accessing the services provided by specialists. We work with parents to ensure that evaluations for developmental delays are conducted as quickly as possible. Typically, we can schedule an evaluation for a developmental delay within two weeks of contacting the office. We typically provide results within one week of the evaluation.

My pediatrician would like my child to be evaluated for autism?  Do you perform those tests and what is the wait time for testing and results?

Yes, we provide comprehensive evaluation for autism, including full cognitive, functional, and social assessments. For an autism evaluation, we would commonly use a cognitive measure to assess your child’s IQ, and we use the ADOS-2, one of the most widely used instruments for the assessment of autism.  Dr. Senefeld can usually test and provide an autism report within two weeks of contacting our office, depending on scheduling. Our evaluations are comprehensive and provide the same diagnostic clarity as those offered at major institutions like Kennedy Krieger. Typically, these evaluations are covered by most insurance plans.

Why choose CPE Clinic, LLC for an early childhood development evaluation?

Our providers offer expertise, experience, and access that is hard to find anywhere else.  Dr. Shannon Senefeld, who oversees CPE Clinic’s psychological evaluation, has extensive experience conducting psychological evaluations of all types. Dr. Senefeld has served on the faculty at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital, where she provided psychological testing services as her specialization.  She understands the range of psychology tests, the nuances in testing results, and writes reports that help her patients obtain necessary services to succeed in academic and social settings. Dr. Senefeld is familiar with the schools and the services offered in the area and takes the time to work with families to access the resources they need to guarantee their children’s success. Additionally, Dr. Senefeld is dedicated to providing timely services, including providing a range of possible evaluation dates to families and also ensuring that reports are provided back to the families within the shortest possible timeline.

Will my insurance cover early childhood evaluations?

Questions regarding coverage for early childhood evaluations should be directed to your specific insurance company and your specific insurance plan. CPE Clinic, LLC is an out-of-network provider for all commercial insurances, so you should ask if you have out-of-network coverage for the following procedure codes:  90791 (intake), 96101 (testing by the psychologist), 96103 (testing with a computer), and 90846 (family therapy without the patient) and 90847 (family therapy with the patient) for the feedback session.  Families pay for the evaluation at the time of the testing, and then submit forms provided by CPE Clinic, LLC to their insurance company for reimbursement.

What is the cost of early childhood evaluations?

At CPE Clinic, LLC, an average comprehensive evaluation averages $2800.  This covers the intake interview, all the hours of face to face contact with the child during the evaluation, the time the psychologist puts in to scoring and interpreting the test results and reviewing the child’s school and other records, the time required for the psychologist to write the report, and the feedback session with the parents. Should extended testing and time be required, these fees could increase, but this would be discussed with the client prior to testing.

Please reach out to discuss other possible evaluations and costs if you do not see what you need reflected here.

All of our providers are out of network and do not participate with any insurance programs. Please contact your insurance provider – click here for a guide for How to Check Your Health Insurance.  Some clients have success advocating for out of network benefits – here is some information that you might find helpful about advocating for out of network benefits.

Appointments

To make an appointment with any of our providers, please call the office line at 410-979-2326. You can also email erin@cpeclinic.com or jennifer@cpeclinic.com.