practical assessments
Let’s Look Under the Surface
Finally get the right kind of support.
Short-term, play-based assessment with tailored guidance for next steps and practical tips for educational advocacy.
Neurodiversity-affirming assessment and recommendations
Together we’ll connect your child’s unique patterns of emotional regulation with sturdy brain-body-behavior support.
Many families drawn to my work are looking for clarity about what type of support will be the best fit.
While I’m certainly prepared to follow your instincts about your child’s needs—part of my job is helping you identify what interventions are likely to be most effective and connect with right-fit supports.
Over many years of practice and training, I’ve developed a unique approach to play-based assessment that takes into account your family dynamics, your child’s current strengths and areas of challenge, and the bigger picture of their social, emotional, and developmental skills, as well as where they could benefit from additional resources or a shift in expectations.
This process helps you become an expert in your child’s patterns and behavior, so you can lean into curiosity about what needs are fueling them, decode their non-verbal cues before things go sideways, and help set them up for success and connection across home, school, peer relationships, camps, sports, and beyond!
Because there’s more than one way to navigate social skills and academic learning—together, we’re embarking on a process of making new connections and predicting stuck spots—so you, and they, can feel more prepared and empowered to meet their needs as they grow.
some questions we can answer together…
Does your child need help with regulation?
Or a fresh approach to setting limits?
Are they showing up differently across settings—if so, what accounts for different behaviors between home and school?
Would they benefit from academic or behavioral coaching?
Are there sensory aspects to their overwhelm, or areas of development needing more support?
What might bridge the gap between high intelligence or giftedness and lagging social-emotional skills?
we can mix & match common elements of assessment over 3-5 sessions
Play-based family play observation
Developmental history, including pre-adoption, grief & loss, complex trauma, or medical trauma experiences
Parent support for parent-child relationship building
AutPlay screening for mental health aspects that may be related to neurodivergence
Attachment support for parenting challenging kids
why book in-depth assessment over one full day?
By request, I’ve designed a short-term, focused approach to play-based assessment for the whole family. As an alternative to a typical 3-5 appointment series, you can reserve a full- or half-day of support for your whole family—this is the Intensive Assessment option*—including both parent and child support.
You can expect:
Immediately useful reflections on emotional maturity, current stress coping strategies, and executive function strengths
Insights about what needs may be fueling behavior challenges, as well as strategies most likely to be effective
In-depth feedback across important developmental areas of self-regulation, sensory integration, relationship skills, and cognitive problem-solving
Focused parent coaching and portable, flexible tools for regulation and positive communication
Understand your own communication and stress-coping patterns as a starting point for positive shifts toward regulating the whole family
Respectful, neurodiversity-affirming approach to helping your child learn about their own brain and strengths to build on—with conversation starters to keep the discussion going at home & school, as needed
We’ll work together to build a menu of services and gentle schedule, including just what you need.
Play-based assessment, with the nervous system and ages/stages of development in mind
Personalized parent coaching, in conversation with me, or together with your child engaged in play activities
Adult Attachment Interview to help you understand how the ways you were parented may be influencing your parenting—including what you like about that and what you might want to do differently in raising your particular child
Specific recommendations for next steps, including specialty referrals for any follow-up evaluations, therapy, or educational supports we identify together
Specific measures to screen for anxiety, ADHD and/or Autistic traits, by request
Location
We’ll meet at my office / playroom, just off I-84, in NE Portland’s Hollywood District. On-site parking, covered bike racks, and public transit accessible. The building has an elevator and private, all gender restrooms. I’m happy to share some of my favorite nearby food spots, if we’re spending a whole day together!
Investment
Assessment is billed at $200/hour, with a Good Faith Estimate of both time and fees provided at the start of services. Partial reimbursement may be available, depending on your coverage and Out Of Network benefits, for standard assessment and therapy sessions with me (45-60 minutes, including a documented diagnosis); I encourage families to check these benefits before we start. *Please note: Insurance coverage is not available for intensive services.
Meet MereAnn
MereAnn Reid, LPC, RPT, is a licensed professional counselor, registered play therapist, and a dedicated yogi :: As a therapist in private practice for 17 years, I’ve been compelled to build a specialty in neurodiversity-affirming assessment and parent support as I’ve come to understand my own regulation and sensory needs in a highly relational career. I’m a clinical supervisor supporting fellow play therapists, a Level-II trainer with Dr. Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Network—a brain-based, developmentally-sound, attachment-focused approach to assessment, Certified AutPlay provider, Certified Synergetic Play Therapist, Level-III certified clinician in Understanding PDA, and trained in autism assessment with children from toddlers to teens. The empowerment and capacity that comes from blending brain science, sensory-smart play activities, family systems thinking, and support for different ways of learning and communication informs my practice.
