Adult Assessments at Hanover CBT
Helping Adults Understand Attention, Learning, Memory, and Navigating Daily Life in Hanover, New Hampshire
At Hanover Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapies, adult assessments are designed to help people better understand how they think, learn, process information, manage demands, and function in real life. The goal is not only diagnosis. It is understanding.
Sometimes something in daily life feels harder than it should, but it is not obvious why. An adult may be struggling with attention, organization, reading, writing, test performance, work demands, communication, learning, cognitive efficiency, memory, or a long-standing sense that certain tasks take more effort than they seem to take for other people.
Adult assessment at Hanover CBT is meant to be accurate, validating, and practically useful. The process aims to build a clearer picture of strengths, challenges, patterns, and support needs so recommendations can help with work, school, testing, accommodations, treatment, or day-to-day functioning.
When an Adult Assessment May Be Helpful
Some adults seek assessment because they are pursuing diagnostic clarity. Others want a more accurate explanation for patterns they have lived with for years. Some are trying to understand what kinds of support, accommodations, or strategies may be helpful.
An adult assessment may be useful when someone is trying to understand:
Attention, focus, and executive functioning difficulties
Learning differences that may have gone unrecognized earlier in life
Reading, writing, or math-related difficulties that still affect work or academic performance
Autism-related questions, communication patterns, or differences in how they relate to the world
Memory, processing, or cognitive concerns
Why certain tasks consistently feel harder, slower, or more effortful than expected
How emotional factors such as anxiety or mood may be interacting with daily performance
If accommodations may be appropriate for graduate school, licensing exams, college, or the workplace
A Rigorous and Person-Centered Approach
Adult assessment at Hanover CBT is not only about administering tests. It is a clinical process that combines interviews, background history, standardized measures, careful interpretation, and attention to lived experience.
The goal is not to reduce someone to a score profile. Standardized data can be useful, but it does not fully explain a person's life, environment, strengths, history, relationships, culture, goals, or everyday reality. Hanover CBT approaches assessment as a way to integrate objective information with the broader story of the person.
That matters because useful assessment is not only about naming a difficulty. It is about understanding how a person functions, what may be contributing to the difficulties they are experiencing, and what kind of support could make a real difference.
What an Adult Assessment May Include
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Interviews about history, current concerns, and goals, along with review of educational, psychological, medical, or prior testing records when relevant.
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Standardized testing or questionnaires.
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Assessment of attention, executive functioning, learning, memory, language, or broader cognitive processes depending on the concern.
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Consideration of emotional functioning when it may be affecting performance or day-to-day life, and interpretation of findings in the context of the person’s real-world functioning.
The process is designed to answer useful questions, not to test for the sake of testing. Different adults need different kinds of assessment, and Hanover CBT’s approach will feel tailored to the individual rather than generic.
Practical Outcomes and Recommendations
A strong assessment should help someone leave with more than information. It should help them understand what the findings mean and what they can do next.
Assessments will always include recommendations for treatment or therapy and depending on outcomes may include:
Diagnostic clarification
Strategies to support work, school, studying, organization, or daily functioning
Recommendations for accommodations
Guidance about what to share with a school, testing board, employer, physician, therapist, or other provider
A clearer understanding of personal strengths and the conditions under which someone functions best
For some adults, assessment may support requests for accommodations on graduate, licensing, or professional exams such as the GRE, LSAT, MCAT, Praxis, or similar settings. For others, it may provide language and structure for understanding persistent challenges that have never been fully explained.
Hanover CBT’s adult assessment work benefits from complementary evaluator strengths.
Dr Frank Van Santen brings a thoughtful, analytical approach to assessment. His work is especially helpful when diagnostic clarification, learning differences, attention-related concerns, or accommodation questions require a detailed understanding of cognitive and academic strengths and challenges.
Megan Sass brings a highly person-centered and context-sensitive approach. She pays close attention to developmental history, lived experience, and how patterns show up in everyday life, helping assessments feel accurate, validating, and useful beyond the test data alone.
Together, these approaches support the kind of assessment Hanover CBT wants to offer: clinically rigorous, psychologically intelligent, and genuinely helpful in real life.
Adults can expect an assessment process that is serious, careful, and collaborative. Hanover CBT clinicians work to explain what is being assessed, why it matters, and how findings may be used.
The process is not meant to be shaming, reductive, or overly technical. It is meant to help people better understand themselves and identify next steps that may improve functioning, access, support, or quality of life.
