VIDEO ONLY: Liz Angoff, Ph.D., Empowering Assessments: Helping Neurodivergent Children Understand Their Amazing Brains, 2 CEs

When children with learning and developmental differences don’t know why they struggle, they often develop negative, harmful self-narratives that can follow them into adulthood. In the process of assessment, we have a unique opportunity to help children rewrite these negative narratives and empower them to become strong self-advocates. In this workshop, I will share specific tools and strategies for helping children understand their neuropsychological profile using positive, developmentally appropriate language. We will explore how to introduce assessment in a way that helps children become co-investigators in understanding how their brain works, help children ask helpful assessment questions, and develop neurodiversity-affirming, child-centered ways of explaining their diagnosis. Level of Activity: Intermediate Objectives: Participants will identify 4 phases of helping children understand their neuropsychological profile or diagnosis. Participants will explore tools to help kids share their experiences and develop a shared vocabulary for talking about strengths and challenges. Participants will practice creating a neurodiversity-affirming and personalized definition of a diagnosis for a child.