By Scott McKirdy – Registered Psychologist and co-owner of Solasta Counselling in Calgary, where he conducts adult autism and ADHD assessments. View Scott’s profile >>
If you have been wondering whether you might have ADHD, deciding whether to pursue an assessment can feel like a big step. You may have spent years managing difficulties with attention, organization, procrastination, time management, restlessness, or feeling overwhelmed without really understanding why.
At Solasta Counselling, we speak with adults at many different stages of that process. Some have suspected ADHD for years. Others have only recently started wondering whether it might explain some of the challenges they have experienced.
An adult ADHD assessment is not simply about checking enough boxes to receive a diagnosis. Done well, it should help you better understand yourself, how your brain works, where you struggle, and what might help going forward.
Here are 10 of the questions people commonly have before booking an adult ADHD assessment.
1. How do I know if an ADHD assessment might be worth considering?
There isn’t one particular experience that means someone should have an ADHD assessment.
Adults often begin considering assessment because they notice longstanding difficulties with things such as attention, organization, procrastination, managing time, completing tasks, forgetfulness, impulsivity, restlessness, or regulating emotions.
For some people, these challenges become more noticeable when the demands of life increase. University, careers, relationships, parenting and managing a household can require much more independent organization than earlier stages of life.
The important word is longstanding. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition, so an assessment doesn’t just look at what has been happening recently. We are interested in your life now, but also what things were like when you were younger.
You don’t need to figure out whether you have ADHD before contacting us. That’s the point of the assessment.
2. Do I need a referral for an adult ADHD assessment?
No.
You do not need a physician’s referral to book a private adult ADHD assessment with a psychologist at Solasta.
You can contact our office directly or book a free 20-minute assessment consultation. During that call, you can speak with one of our senior psychologists about what has been happening, what you are hoping to understand, and what the assessment process looks like.
If an adult ADHD assessment seems appropriate and you would like to proceed, you can book the assessment from there.
3. What actually happens during an adult ADHD assessment?
At Solasta, the process will vary somewhat depending on the psychologist and the individual being assessed. Psychologists are licensed professionals who use their clinical judgment to determine what information and testing are appropriate for each person.
Typically, however, there is one main in-person assessment appointment lasting approximately two to three hours.
A significant part of that appointment is spent talking with you. We want to understand your life now as well as your experiences before age 12, including school, work, home life and the challenges you have experienced in different settings.
We aren’t simply asking whether you can concentrate. We are looking for real-life examples and patterns that help us understand how attention, impulsivity, activity level and executive functioning affect your everyday life.
There may also be structured testing during the appointment. For example, a psychologist may use selected tasks from the D-KEFS to examine aspects of executive functioning.
Questionnaires may be completed during the appointment or sent to you afterward. We may also ask someone who knows you well to complete an informant questionnaire.
The psychologist then brings all of this information together rather than relying on any single test or questionnaire.
4. How long does an adult ADHD assessment take?
The main assessment appointment at Solasta is typically about two to three hours and takes place in person at our Calgary office.
But that isn’t the end of the process.
Afterward, your psychologist needs time to review the interview information, score and interpret testing and questionnaires, consider information provided by an informant where available, and integrate everything into a written psychological report.
Typically, we meet again a couple of weeks later for a feedback appointment. That meeting can usually take place either in person or virtually.
During the feedback session, we go through the results together, discuss whether diagnostic criteria are met, review the report and talk about recommendations and possible next steps.
5. What kinds of tests are used in an adult ADHD assessment?
There isn’t one test that can simply tell us whether someone has ADHD.
Instead, psychologists gather information from several sources. At Solasta, this typically includes a detailed clinical interview, standardized questionnaires and some structured psychological testing. Depending on the individual, this may include measures examining attention, executive functioning, working memory and related areas.
We may also use questionnaires completed by someone who knows you well.
This combination gives us something much more useful than the result of a single ADHD screener. We can compare what you experience subjectively with your history, examples from everyday life, standardized measures, structured tasks and, where available, another person’s observations.
The precise assessment battery can vary because the psychologist chooses measures based on the individual and the questions the assessment is trying to answer.
6. Why do you ask someone else to complete a questionnaire about me?
An informant gives us another perspective on how you function in everyday life.
Depending on your circumstances, that might be a spouse, parent or sibling. They may notice patterns that you experience differently or have become so accustomed to that you no longer think much about them.
Their perspective doesn’t override yours. It is simply another piece of information that can be considered alongside your interview, testing, questionnaires and history.
We find this especially useful because a good psychological assessment isn’t built around one score or one person’s observations. We are looking for the overall pattern that emerges when the different pieces of information are considered together.
7. What if I don’t have childhood records or anyone who can tell you what I was like as a child?
This is a very reasonable concern, particularly for adults being assessed in their 30s, 40s, 50s or later.
ADHD begins during childhood, so understanding your earlier development is important. Ideally, we like to have collateral information from someone who knew you when you were younger. Old report cards or other historical information can also sometimes be helpful.
But we recognize that this isn’t always possible.
Parents may no longer be available. Family relationships may be complicated. Records may have disappeared decades ago. And we don’t believe an assessment process that is supposed to be helpful should unnecessarily create additional stress.
Your psychologist will do their best to collect and bring together the historical information that is reasonably available. In some circumstances, when the other evidence is sufficiently strong and consistent, detailed self-report about childhood experiences can provide adequate information.
Not having your Grade 4 report card does not automatically prevent you from being assessed for ADHD.
8. What happens if the assessment shows that I don’t have ADHD?
This is one of the reasons we think of assessment as much more than a yes-or-no exercise.
The purpose of an assessment is to answer the question that brought you there and to help you better understand yourself.
Attention, motivation, memory and executive-functioning difficulties don’t occur only in ADHD. Anxiety, depression and trauma, for example, can also affect how someone functions. Part of an adult ADHD assessment involves considering whether something else might better explain, or contribute to, the difficulties you are experiencing.
Sometimes an assessment may also raise questions that weren’t apparent at the beginning. If there are indications of something outside the scope of the original ADHD assessment, such as a possible learning difficulty or autism, your psychologist can discuss that with you. Further assessment might be recommended, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be completed at Solasta.
Whatever the conclusion, the goal is for you to leave with a better understanding of yourself and useful recommendations for what comes next.
An assessment should be a roadmap for the future, not simply a box that says ADHD: yes or no.
Sometimes autism is part of the picture too. See What Is AuDHD?
9. What can I use an ADHD assessment report for?
People come to us for adult ADHD assessments for different reasons, but we tend to hear two themes particularly often.
The first is simply understanding.
For someone who has spent years wondering why certain parts of life seem harder than they should, having a clearer understanding of how their brain works can be meaningful. For some people, there is also a sense of validation in finally having language for patterns and struggles they have experienced for a long time.
The second is figuring out what support might actually help.
The results and recommendations can help guide ADHD counselling and strategies for everyday life and relationships. Where appropriate, a psychological report may also support discussions about accommodations or other supports at university or in the workplace.
Some people also use their report when speaking with other healthcare professionals about treatment options and next steps.
In certain circumstances, psychological documentation may form part of an application for other programs or supports, although eligibility is determined by the requirements of the particular program rather than by an ADHD diagnosis alone.
10. How much does an adult ADHD assessment cost in Calgary?
At Solasta Counselling, the current fee for an adult ADHD assessment is $1,500.
That is the total assessment fee. It covers the assessment appointment, psychological testing and questionnaires, scoring and interpretation, preparation of your written report, and the feedback appointment where you and your psychologist review the results and recommendations together.
Before committing to an assessment, you can also book a free 20-minute assessment consultation to ask questions about the process and determine whether an ADHD assessment makes sense for what you are hoping to understand.
Thinking About an Adult ADHD Assessment?
You don’t need to know whether you have ADHD before contacting us. In fact, we would rather you didn’t feel that you had to arrive with the answer already figured out.
A good assessment starts with a question.
Our job is to listen carefully, gather the right information, look at the different possibilities, and help you make sense of what we find.
Solasta Counselling provides adult ADHD assessments in Calgary with registered psychologists at our NW Calgary clinic. No referral is required.