Your child walks in expecting an examination and, most of the time, leaves surprised. Here is what the day actually involves, so you can describe it accurately.
What do you say beforehand?
Say something simple and true. For example: “We are going to see a psychologist who is going to work out which kinds of thinking are easy for you and which are harder, so that school can stop being so tiring. There are puzzles and questions. There is nothing to revise and no marks.” That is enough.
What not to do: present it as a surprise outing, promise it will be “fun”, or let your child discover the purpose in the room. Children who feel misled become guarded, and a guarded child produces scores that underestimate them.
What does the room look like, and how does the session run?
A quiet consulting room, a table, two chairs, and test materials out of sight. We spend the first ten minutes talking about something entirely unrelated (school, football, whatever your child cares about), because rapport is not a courtesy. It is a condition for valid results.
Then the tasks: answering questions aloud, arranging blocks or pictures, remembering sequences of numbers, spotting patterns, reading words and passages, spelling, writing a short piece, doing some arithmetic. Each task lasts a few minutes. Some are timed; some are not. The variety keeps most children interested for longer than they expect.
Breaks happen whenever they are needed: a drink, a walk, a few minutes of nothing. For younger children we may split the work across two mornings rather than push through one long session.
Why do the tasks get too hard?
Every subtest continues until the items defeat the child. That is deliberate: the score comes from where the ceiling is, so every child, including the most able, must reach items they cannot do. Do warn your child about this, and warn them that I will not tell them whether an answer was right. It is not a secret; feedback would simply change the next answer. Children cope with this easily once told; unprepared, they read it as failure.
Where are the parents?
Nearby, but not in the room. Standardised administration requires it, and children generally work more freely without an audience they want to impress. With very young or anxious children we adapt. Separately, I will spend a longer session with you on developmental history (pregnancy and birth, early milestones, language, health, school history, family context), which is one of the most informative parts of the whole assessment.
What should you bring, and what happens afterwards?
Bring glasses or hearing aids if your child uses them, a snack and water, and any previous reports, school assessments or IEPs. Ordinary sleep and breakfast matter more than anything else you can do. If your child is unwell on the day, reschedule. Testing a child with a temperature produces numbers nobody can use.
Afterwards, keep it light. “How was it?” and then a change of subject is plenty. Resist the urge to ask what the questions were or how they did: your child does not know, and cannot know. Findings come to you at the feedback meeting, and I will discuss with you separately how much to share with your child and in what words.
Assessment day is a long, varied, one-to-one conversation with puzzles in it. Tell your child the truth, give them breakfast, and expect them to come out saying it was fine. Good luck!