Anne Mc Donald

I am an Educational Psychologist currently working from a small private practice in Claremont. I have had over 30 years' experience in education, first as a teacher and then as a school educational psychologist. I consequently understand the challenges of young people in the school system well.

I am passionate about working with children, adolescents and their families, helping them to navigate their lives both in the home and education environment.

I am skilled in the areas of psychotherapy and assessment and provide support to young people of all ages as they negotiate their learning environment. This is done by psycho educational assessment, providing therapy and play therapy, and providing guidance for executive functioning. I also provide parents and teachers with practical strategies on how to support their child in learning and development.

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Psycho-Educational Assessment

This usually includes:

1. Intake interview
2. Extensive investigation into developmental and school history using forms sent to parents and school (with the permission from the parent).
3. Observation (both during the assessment, and if necessary, at school prior to the assessment).
4. Assessment over one or two days – depending on the age and stamina of the learner. This includes assessing various levels of functioning and for details of this please see below:
5. Feedback to parents (and school if requested) to discuss the results of the assessment and recommendations – this takes place approximately one week of the assessment.
6. A full written report will be provided within two weeks of the assessment.

The actual assessment involves investigating the following areas of functioning:

• Emotional functioning – this is done to help understand a child's current level of emotional and behavioural functioning to determine what influences might be impacting the child's functioning both cognitively and on an educational level.
  • This is done using a range of projective techniques
  • Evaluating a child's self-esteem/self-concept
  • How a child feels in relation to his/her family
  • A child's emotional experience of school
  • How the child feels in his/her relationships with peers
• Cognitive functioning – The cognitive assessment involves determining an individual's current areas of strength and vulnerability in their: verbal reasoning, visual spatial abilities, non-verbal reasoning, working memory and processing speed.
• Developmental functioning – Various other areas of development are evaluated, including receptive and expressive language, memory, information processing, visual-motor integration and perception. Identifying potential attention and concentration difficulties is also assessed.
• Educational functioning – This gives an indication of how a child is functioning with school tasks like mathematics, reading, writing and spelling. It can help identify areas of weakness and how remedial interventions can be used to improve the child's performance at school and can help identify any learning disorders like dyslexia, written expression etc.

Therapy

I provide play therapy and therapy to young people as they negotiate various challenges at school and at home. I work mainly from a narrative therapy perspective. After some time investigating the nature of the problem, we would together look for alternative stories about the client's life and use these to address ways of managing the problem. When the problem suggests that a Cognitive Behavioural therapeutic approach is required, we will investigate how thoughts and beliefs affect emotions and experience.

Executive Functioning

I also provide executive functioning support for learners who are struggling to organize, prioritize and get started on their work.

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