About The Practice
About Dr. Appleby
I have been in the practice of pediatric neuropsychology in the western suburbs of Chicago since 1988. I was on the faculty of Loyola University Medical Center for almost 25 years, initially in the Departments of Surgery and Pediatrics, and then in the Departments of Neurology and Pediatrics. I was previously Director of both the Neuropsychology Service and Pediatric Neuropsychology at Loyola. I also directed the Learning Evaluation Center and was a member of the Pediatric Neurotrauma Team, the Pediatric Oncology Team, and the Spina Bifida Clinic. I previously served as a Board Member of the Illinois Spinda Bifida Association and also served on the State of Illinois Task Force for the Education of Children with Traumatic Brain Injuries.
Educationally, I attended the University of Michigan before receiving my Bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I earned my Masters and Doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology at The University of Houston. My internship training was in Boston, under the supervision of Dr. Edith Kaplan, with extensive clinical experiences at both Boston Children's Hospital and The Kennedy Memorial Hospital for Children.
Treating the Client
I recognize that each child is a unique individual and presents for an evaluation with distinctive strengths and concerns. So, assessment protocols are always individualized, based on the age of the child as well as the essential issues that are creating challenges in their life. But, the following areas of functioning are typically incorporated into a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation:
- Intellectual functioning (general cognitive ability)
- Working memory (auditory, visual)
- Divided attention
- Sustained concentration (auditory, visual)
- Distractibility
- Impulse-control
- Cognitive set-shifting
- Executive functioning (organization and planning)
- Verbal reasoning and thinking abilities
- Language functioning (expressive and receptive) Nonverbal ability (visual-perceptual and visual-spatial processing, visual-constructional skills)
- Processing speed
- Learning and memory functioning (verbal/auditory-linguistic, visual/nonverbal)
- Abstract reasoning, concept formation, and problem-solving abilities
- Academic skills
- "Readiness" skills
- Reading sight vocabulary
- Phonological processing/phonemic awareness
- "Attack" skills
- Reading fluency
- Reading comprehension
- Spelling
- Written expression
- Mathematics application/problem-solving
- Practical arithmetic
- Behavioral functioning
- Social perception, judgment, and social effectiveness
- Mood and social-emotional functioning