Assessments

What is psychological assessment?

Our assessment services help identify a person’s strengths and challenges. This may include day to day functioning, cognitive
(thinking) profiles, personality traits or neurotype (brain style). Assessments help understand more about the person and find ways to support them to achieve their goals.

What type of assessment do I need?

Some people know exactly what type of assessment they want. This may be because someone has asked them to have an assessment, or it may be because they have done lots of research before they contact us.

Other people are unsure. They reach out because they are struggling with something and are not sure why.

We work the same way with everyone. The most important thing is that you and your clinician work together to help plan the right assessment for you. At the Cairnmillar Institute, we focus on understanding your experience, rather than simply providing a diagnosis (although, if this is relevant to you, we do provide a diagnosis as part of our assessment)

What Assessments Are Available?

Our assessments are tailored to your specific needs. We use lots of tools to understand more about you.
This may include:

  • a cognitive assessment (we use the WISC-V and WAIS-IV for these)

  • an academic assessment (we use the WIAT-III)

  • an adaptive functioning assessment (we use the Vineland-3, ABAS and WHODASS)

  • questionnaires about executive functioning

  • questionnaires about social communication

  • interviews like the Migdas or DIVA

  • a vocational assessment

  • assessments of your memory, personality or mental health

These can be used in different ways to diagnose:

  • specific learning disorders such as dyslexia or dyscalculia

  • autism

  • ADHD

  • intellectual developmental disorder

  • personality disorders

  • neurocognitive decline (e.g., dementia)

  • mental health concerns such as bipolar disorder, generalised anxiety disorder etc.

This is a low-cost service.

Assessments are carried out by provisional
psychologists and counsellors-in-training.

Your assessment will be referred to this
pathway if:

  • You are seeking a cognitive, learning or
    vocational assessment.

  • You have not had any previous
    assessments.

Assessments are carried out by registered
psychologists (who may be endorsed in an
area such as clinical psychology or educational
and developmental psychology).

Your assessment will be referred to this
pathway if:

  • You have been referred by a psychiatrist
    or paediatrician.

  • You have had a previous assessment,
    including a Community Clinic
    Assessment, that suggested further
    diagnostic evaluation.

Assessments are carried out by registered
psychologists and registered psychologists who
are completing post-graduate training.

Your assessment will be referred to this
pathway if:

  • You are over 12 years old.

  • You have one or more previous diagnoses
    and would like to understand more.

  • You have complex mental health
    challenges that may need further
    exploration to be clear about your
    diagnosis.

  • You are experiencing memory loss,
    cognitive problems or loss of adaptive
    functioning.

  • You are seeking a report for court or are
    involved in the criminal justice system.

Assessment Costs

Community Clinic Pathway

Comprehensive Assessment (3-5 sessions) $750 $550
Vocational Assessment (2 sessions) $200 $100
Personality Assessment (2 Sessions) $100 $50

Diagnostic Evaluation / Complex Assessment Pathway

Comprehensive Assessment $3400 $2800
Diagnostic Evaluation (2-3 sessions) $2000 $1600
Brief Assessment (personality, vocational) $500 N/A
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What Does an Assessment Look Like

  1. After you contact our clinic, the Clinic Support Team will send you an email with a link to an online form.
  2. Our Assessment Clinic Lead review your responses and will allocate you to one of the assessment pathways. Our waitlist is typically 6-12 months. 
  3. Your initial session will be an intake session with either a registered psychologist or a provisional psychologist. This lasts 90-120 minutes and includes lots of questions about you and your history. Your clinician may ask for you to provide any previous relevant reports. This does not apply for Vocational Assessments.
  4. At the end of your intake session, you will be booked in for two or three more testing sessions and a feedback session. Testing sessions generally have to be face-to-face at one of our clinics, but this will be discussed with you at the time.
  5. At your feedback session you will be given your results. At this time, you may also be given a diagnosis. This is just a name that can be used to describe the pattern of results you have. After your feedback session you will be sent a written report with all your results and strategies to help you.

FAQs

Crisis Numbers

Emergency Services 000 24 hours/7 days a week. Call this number in emergency situations when immediate police, fire or ambulance assistance is required.
Lifeline 13 11 14 Lifeline is available 24 hours a day to listen, without judgement to any person in Australia who is feeling overwhelmed, experiencing crisis or longs to be heard.
SuicideLine Victoria 1300 651 251 SuicideLine Victoria is a 24/7 telehealth provider that offers free professional phone and online counselling for people living in Victoria.
MensLine Australia 1300 789 978 24 hours/7 days a week. MensLine Australia is a telephone and online counselling service offering support for Australian men anywhere, anytime..
Sexual Assault Crisis Line 1800 806 292 5 pm–9 am/7 days. Victims/survivors of past and recent sexual assault.
Kids Helpline 1800 551 800 24/7 Telephone counselling service for people aged between 5 and 25.
BeyondBlue 1300 224 636 24 hours/7 days a week. Call, online chat and online forums.
Safe Steps 1800 015 188 Safe Steps is Victoria’s 24/7 family violence response centre. Providing specialist support services for anyone in Victoria who is experiencing or afraid of family violence.
13YARN 13 92 76 24 /7 Crisis support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. 13YARN is the first national service of its kind for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people in crisis. They offer a confidential one-on-one over the phone yarning opportunity and support with a trained Lifeline Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Crisis Supporter for mob who are feeling overwhelmed or having difficulty coping.

Aboriginal flagTorres Strait Islanders flag

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Wurundjeri and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the lands on which The Cairnmillar Institute is located, and we pay our respect to their Elders, past, present and emerging. We also extend these respects to any First Nations peoples engaging with these materials, and our services

Sometimes in life there’s lots of things goin’ on that can be hard and trying, or easy and happy, but my artwork gives me strength to see out the bad times. This is my Country before colonisation. The lines are like a map representing how our people shaped the Country with their spiritual connections told in songs and stories. The blue water and the red oxide land show my journey line with places I’ve stopped along the way. The small linear patches of dots are all the different mobs and families around Country. The brown patterns and shapes are mountain ridges and waterholes representing time past. The diamond patterns are from patterns on our old shields. Their colours represent connection to culture and the red dirt and many coloured sands that make up our beautiful Country. The group of Elders sitting with their spears are telling stories of Bunjil the eagle, our Creator, and passing down their knowledge of tracking and hunting. The goannas are my Ancestors watching, mesmerised, over their Country and culture.

Ash Thomas Yorta Yorta/Wiradjuri people There's a Lot Goin' On, 2025

Sometimes in life there’s lots of things goin’ on that can be hard and trying, or easy and happy, but my artwork gives me strength to see out the bad times. This is my Country before colonisation. The lines are like a map representing how our people shaped the Country with their spiritual connections told in songs and stories. The blue water and the red oxide land show my journey line with places I’ve stopped along the way. The small linear patches of dots are all the different mobs and families around Country. The brown patterns and shapes are mountain ridges and waterholes representing time past. The diamond patterns are from patterns on our old shields. Their colours represent connection to culture and the red dirt and many coloured sands that make up our beautiful Country. The group of Elders sitting with their spears are telling stories of Bunjil the eagle, our Creator, and passing down their knowledge of tracking and hunting. The goannas are my Ancestors watching, mesmerised, over their Country and culture.

Torch logo 1 CMYK

This artwork was created through The Torch, a not-for-profit organisation that provides art, cultural and arts industry support to First Nations people currently in, or recently released, from Victorian prisons.