Sharon Blott Psychological Services - Calgary

We are a family from the UK who have settled in Canada since mid 2018. Our son was recognised as being gifted las year and therefore, we were required to do a gifted assessment which included an intellectual assessment (WISC-V) for admission to the school year in 2020. Sharon not only offered a friendly service, but was extremely professional, courteous and understanding. She made the whole experience less daunting and more enjoyable. Her high standard of professionalism showed and we would strongly recommend her services to anyone else considering doing such assessments or requiring other related services. The location was also easy to find and the whole process from start to finish was user-friendly. The fees were also extremely reasonable given the level of service. We will definitely be using Sharon Blott Psychological Services for the future as well.

I had my daughter tested for giftedness in July of 2019. During the debrief (verbal session immediately following the assessment), Ms. Blott told us our daughter's highest score was 120 in the verbal comprehension category, but her working memory score was in the 10th percentile, so her overall FSIQ score was well below the minimum 125 required to apply to Westmount Charter. This result was disappointing, not because I wished my daughter to be something she is not, but because I found my daughter to be extremely curious, in need of a lot of stimulation, and possessing incredibly strong communication and reasoning skills. 10th percentile in working memory just didn't make sense. I asked her during the debrief if it was possible my daughter was distracted (she was only 3.5 years old at the time of the assessment), and if perhaps we should test her again when she is older and better able to focus. Ms. Blott conceded that my daughter was "playing with her ponytails a lot" but assured us my daughter was in to the testing. She also said that there was such a big gap between her score and the mimimum score required that it wouldn't be worth testing her again. Following the debrief Ms. Blott sent a short and simple email report listing the 3 broad test categories and my daughter's score, along with her overall FSIQ score. No other explanations. The only problem was the scores she emailed didn't match what she told us in the debrief session. The verbal comprehension score reported was 128 and her working memory score was 32nd percentile. The overall FSIQ reported in the email was 115. I emailed her back asking her why the discrepancy between our debrief session and her email report. She explained something about a glitch in her system placing my daughter's results with American norms. This would have been fine, but the professional thing to do would have been to offer the explanation without needing to be asked. 1 year later my husband and I were deciding whether or not to retest my daughter, feeling her first test was not a true reflection of her abilities, but without insurance, the $500 test would be coming out of pocket again. Around this time I realized Westmount also accepts a GAI (General Abilities Index) score of 125, which doesn't include the working memory component (the portion on which my daughter scored lower) . I emailed Ms. Blott to ask her if she still had my daughter's GAI score. She quickly replied that she had a score of 120 by this measure, and offered to book her for a retest. I felt this number should have been included in the initial email report, especially since it was a full 5 points higher than the reported FSIQ and would have convinced us earlier that a retest was worthwhile. We did end up retesting my daughter just before the Westmount deadline, but because of the occurences described above I opted not to retest with Ms. Blott. I found her to be confusing in her communication with us and simply administrating tests rather than skillfully looking for signs of giftedness. Without being too specific about scores, my daughter's second test with another psychologist revealed that she is infact gifted and meets the requirements to apply to Westmount. We are glad we didn't heed Ms. Blott's initial advice not to bother retesting her.

I had both of my children assessed for Westmount Charter school in the fall of 2020. I found Ms. Blott to be kind and caring towards them, making my children feel comfortable in her office. Upon completion of the assessments, Ms. Blott went over the results in detail, explaining each area that was assessed. Although neither of my children were gifted, she provided us with a written summary of results which was easy to understand. She encouraged us to work with our children in areas that needed attention, and how to best support their strengths. We appreciated Ms. Blott's professionalism and transparency in all her interactions with our family.

We got our son's IQ evaluated with Ms. Blott. And we are very satisfied. My son gets distracted very easily and takes to warm up to strangers. But I was happy that Ms. Blott was able to take care of these and could evaluate him correctly. I have recommended her to my friends too!