CASPER Clinic Evaluations 

CASPER offers comprehensive psychological assessment services to individuals across the lifespan who present with concerns related to neurodevelopmental conditions, particularly autism.

We do not have a waitlist and are currently accepting new clients. Fill out the CASPER contact form or call (828) 631 - 1422.

WHO WE ARE.

CASPER Clinic evaluations are conducted by an advanced doctoral trainee and Dr. Campbell, a licensed psychologist who has worked in the field of neurodevelopmental disabilities for over 25 years, including pre-doctoral and post-doctoral training at the Yale Child Study Center. He conducts and publishes research in the area of psychological and diagnostic assessment of autism, as well as other areas in the field of autism. 

Learn more about the CASPER team

WHAT WE DO.

CASPER's mission is to provide comprehensive psychological assessments while offering training opportunities for advanced doctoral trainees in Western North Carolina. Our evaluation goals are to describe the individual's functioning and adaptation across various domains and yield a diagnostic formulation, including formal diagnoses, as appropriate. Based upon the information and data we collect, we identify and describe what we think may be valuable for intervention and we deliver these in the form of recommendations during a feedback session with caregivers and, many times, the child, adolescent, or young adult referred for evaluation. We also produce a written report that summarizes our findings, diagnostic conclusions, and recommendations.

what you can expect.

We conduct our evaluations over the course of one day, depending on the needs of the individual. The evaluation team will meet the family and provide a description of the assessment process, answer questions, and complete consent forms. Once these activities are completed, Dr. Campbell will complete a developmental history and adaptive behavior interview with the caregiver while the doctoral trainee completes some of the assessment activities with the child, adolescent, or young adult.  We break for lunch and Dr. Campbell typically will complete autism-specific measures after lunch. Our goal is to elicit the best effort from the individual and we may reschedule some aspects of the evaluation, if needed, to be as confident as possible in the findings.

A typical evaluation consists of the following components.
- Review of prior evaluations, if applicable.
- Developmental history (typically through a caregiver interview).
- Cognitive or developmental testing.
- Assessment of adaptive functioning (typically through a caregiver interview).
- Behavioral assessment (often through behavior rating scales).
- Autism-specific measures, including the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Second Edition and the Childhood Autism Rating Scales-Second Edition.
- Other assessments may be added depending on the needs of the individual, such as language screening, visual-motor screening, and academic achievement testing.
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After the assessment appointment, we will meet with caregivers and, oftentimes, the individual to review findings, our interpretation of those findings, render diagnoses, if appropriate, and describe recommendations based on our findings. The meeting typically occurs one week after the appointment.