Clinic Services
Description of Clinic Services
The Educational Assessment and Student Support Clinic at the University of Utah serves children, adolescents, and young adults in the Intermountain area. The Clinic works with schools and other agencies such as Primary Children's Medical Center to provide neuropsychological psychological, and psychoeducational assessment, consultation, and intervention in the community by graduate students and University faculty.
The Clinic offers specialized assessment in specific areas, such as neuropsychological assessment of children, adolescents, and young adults with learning disabilities, head trauma, attention deficit disorder, and autism. Psychological assessment of children and adolescents with mood and behavior disorders is also offered. Interventions available include individual therapy with children and adolescents; parent training; group and individual social skills training; and academic planning and consultation with the schools regarding a student's educational plan.
Psychological Services - Psychotherapy
Psychological interventions, including psychotherapy, are not easy to describe in a few general statements. Effective treatment depends upon the particular problems you and/or your child may be experiencing, as well as personality factors and establishing a good therapist-client alliance. In an important respect, psychotherapy is dissimilar to visiting a physician in that it calls for more active effort on you/your child's part. For therapy to be most successful, you/your child will have to work on the things we talk about both during the sessions and at home. Psychological treatment includes potential for some risk as well as benefits. Since therapy involves discussing unpleasant aspects of you/your child's life, you may experience uncomfortable feelings which may be temporarily discomforting. On the other hand, psychological treatment has been known to produce many benefits such as a reduction in distress; solutions to specific problems, and better relationships. There can be no guarantees of what you will experience. The Educational Assessment and Student Support Clinic at the University of Utah attempts to minimize risks by providing well-supervised and trained therapists and by frequent evaluations of client progress/status.
The first few sessions will involve an evaluation of you/your child's needs. By the end of this evaluation period, your therapist will be able to offer you an initial impression of your needs and a plan for what treatment might include, if you and/or your child decide to continue with therapy. If you ever have any questions about procedures, you should discuss them whenever they arise.
The Clinic hours are by arrangement. The Clinic does not provide full-time telephone coverage during working hours, and you may be asked to leave a message for the therapist. You/your child's therapist will make every effort to return your call as soon as possible. If you are difficult to reach, please leave some times you might be available. The clinic does not provide emergency services, if you have an emergency or are experiencing a current crisis your options are:
- If hospitalization is required, you may contact University Neuropsychiatric Institute (801-583-2500) or your nearest hospital.
- Call 911.
- Call the Salt Lake City Police at 801-799-3000.
Psychological Services - Psychological/ Neuropsychological & Psychoeducational Evaluations
Evaluations are designed to provide benefits such as an accurate description of client cognitive, intellectual and psychological strengths and weaknesses, treatment planning, and/or school and vocational planning. However, as with psychotherapy, evaluations include potential risks as well as benefits, as previously described. Evaluations may involve several appointments of several hours each, and generally consist of interviews with the client, parent(s) (if the client is a child or adolescent), administration of tests and/or questionnaires, and, when indicated, interviews with school personnel, physicians or other individuals who can provide helpful information to aid in the evaluation. You/your parent's written consent will be necessary to authorize these contacts. Following the completion of the evaluation, a session will be held with you (and your child, if appropriate, for child clients) and your clinician to discuss the results. Due to supervision requirements, it may take several weeks for your clinician to produce a written report of the evaluation. If a report must be written by a certain date, please discuss this with your clinician well in advance. Every effort will be made to make sure that reports are written and disseminated in a timely manner.
