ViewPoint Center, an assessment center and mental health hospital for adolescents of all genders, ages 12-18, highlights their collaboration with additional professionals to help complete the multidisciplinary assessments.
 
The ViewPoint Center looks at an adolescent from many different angles and at times, they turn to other professionals to get a better idea of certain areas that are not essentially in their wheelhouse, such as speech and language services. “Knowing what we don’t know, being aware of what we don’t know, as well as knowing our limitations helps us become wiser.”- Dr. Jordan Rigby, Viewpoint Center’s Director of Assessment.  At times, adolescents enrolling to the ViewPoint Center present as oppositional or with significant anxiety, but when the assessment process follows the behavior to the root cause, the outcome can be identified as starting with language and that’s when they bring in Amber Seely, MS, CCC-SLP-Speech and Language Pathologist to do an additional assessment. 
 
“When you have a language impairment, we can identify it with specific language testing and can pinpoint what areas of language are being impacted and what the deficit is. When we know there is a deficit, we are able to identify different ways to communicate and suggest to parents, teachers and professionals on how to better communicate with these teens.” said Amber Seely.  Adolescents with expressive language disorder or receptive language disorder may have some of the following deficits: reluctant to participate, won’t initiate conversations, difficulty making friends, difficulty following multistep directions, frustration, and may come across as being defiant. 
 
While enrolled at the ViewPoint Center, adolescents participate in a weekly Social Skills Group facilitated by Amber Seely.  The groups focus on helping teens become more effective communicators.  Topics include conversation skills, making and keeping friends, perspectives, problem solving, sportsmanship, humor, emotions (thoughts vs. feelings), and non-verbal language.  Watch the latest Whiteboard Wisdom w/Dr Rigby & Amber Seely and learn more. 

 About the ViewPoint Center

The ViewPoint Center is a comprehensive therapeutic assessment facility licensed as a specialty psychiatric hospital for adolescents, of all genders, ages 12-18. ViewPoint Center employs two tracks, to be used independently or in succession, to accommodate the individualized needs of each patient. The short-term stabilization track provides a safe and nurturing environment that helps to stabilize a patient psychiatrically and clinically so that they can return to a program/ boarding school in a matter of 1-3 weeks.  The assessment track provides a comprehensive multidisciplinary evaluation involving psychiatry, clinical, medical, academic, neuropsychological and social milieu functioning.  The 8-week clinical assessment provides answers to the most complex diagnostic questions as well as recommendations for longer term treatment.