91��ý

91��ý's clinical psychology training clinics give children, students and adults a diagnosis, a direction and a path forward

The letter arrived years after their consultation.

A former client of the University of Colorado Boulder’s��Attention, Behavior and Learning Evaluation (ABLE) Clinic was doing some spring cleaning and found the assessment he had received from the clinic as a teenager. Enclosed with the test results that diagnosed his dyslexia was a small note of encouragement.��

His discovery prompted him to write to the clinic with an update. He was graduating from college, and the note gave him fresh encouragement for the new set of challenges ahead.��

��

Nomita Chhabildas (left), director of the Attention, Behavior, and Learning Clinic; Tina Pittman Wagers (center), director of the Raimy Clinic; and Renée��Martin-Willett (right), assistant research professor and��acting director of the Psychological Assessment & Testing Hub (CU PATH).

“Words are powerful to me. They have always been both vexing and lovely,” he wrote. “When coupled with the right moment, words can carry a meaning that is both motivating and moving. Today it was your words, written almost five years ago, that affected me in just such a way.”��

For Nomita Chhabildas, who has directed the ABLE Clinic for more than two decades, the former client’s letter captures what the university’s three clinical psychology training clinics are meant to do. They are places where people come to better understand themselves and leave with a path forward.

This year, the clinics are experiencing a moment of renewal.

CU PATH, the department’s adult psychological assessment clinic formerly known as the Brain Behavior Clinic, reopened after an 18-month closure following the retirement of the long-time former director. The��Raimy Clinic, which provides affordable mental health treatment for students, staff, faculty and the community, is under new leadership. And the clinic spaces inside Muenzinger Psychology Building have been refreshed with soft colors, warm lighting, art on the walls and inviting furniture in every room. It feels more like a living room than a waiting room.�� ��

“It’s a time when our clinics are being rebuilt,” Chhabildas says. “A really exciting time, both for our students and for the community.”

Three clinics, one mission

The Department of Psychology and Neuroscience operates the three training clinics.

The Raimy Clinic provides psychotherapy for adults, couples and, less frequently, children. CU PATH offers comprehensive adult psychological assessments for conditions including ADHD, learning disabilities and cognitive changes following concussion or traumatic brain injury. The ABLE Clinic focuses on children and adolescents, with deep expertise in learning differences, ADHD and autism spectrum disorder, now estimated by the CDC to affect 1 in 31 children.

All three clinics serve 91��ý students, faculty and staff, as well as community members across the Front Range.��

And all three share what Reneé Martin-Willet, assistant research professor and director of CU PATH, describes as a dual mission. They train the next generation of clinical psychologists while delivering evidence-based care to the community.

“We’re one of the top-ranked clinical psychology programs in the country,” Martin-Willet says. “We have fantastic student clinicians, and everything we do is based on the best, newest science.”

Like a teaching hospital or dental school, the clinicians are doctoral trainees working under close supervision. The model keeps standards high while expanding access. CU PATH charges about $2,100 for a comprehensive assessment, significantly less than the typical private-practice rate. The ABLE Clinic keeps fees similarly low and offers scholarships for families who otherwise cannot afford testing.

That affordability is not incidental. Research conducted by the ABLE Clinic found that children from the lowest-income families are evaluated for learning disorders at roughly half the rate of their higher-income peers.

��

Undergraduate student Cece Di Bella (left) and clinical psychology graduate student Mateo Chavez chat in one of the Raimy Clinic's welcoming spaces.

“We could have increased our fees,” Chhabildas says. “We could have stopped seeing families on scholarships. But we have not done that because we feel like we’re here for the community.”

Bringing research into the room

What distinguishes the clinics, faculty members say, is how closely training is tied to research.

“Our students and faculty are working with world-class clinical researchers who are developing and testing the very evidenced-based treatments we provide,” says Raimy Clinic Director Tina Pittman Wagers.��

Pittman Wagers stepped into the Raimy Clinic director role seven months ago after 25 years on the faculty. She’s currently supervising doctoral students in behavioral activation, a gold standard treatment for depression developed in part by Sona Dimidjian, faculty member and director of 91��ý’s Crown Institute.

“When clients come to the clinic,” Pittman Wagers says, “they benefit from treatments that have been rigorously tested and are being taught by some of the same people who helped develop them.”

Martin-Willet traces a similar arc in her own career. As a doctoral student at CU, she trained under anxiety researcher Joanna Arch while working on one of Arch’s clinical trials. Later, during her residency at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) approaches she had learned proved essential for patients with brain injuries, amputations and cancer.

“That’s a very direct line,” she says, “from research at CU, to training in the clinic, to application with patients elsewhere, to better care in real-world settings.”

More than a label

Since opening in 2004, the ABLE Clinic has served more than 1,000 children and trained more than 80 doctoral students. Family feedback surveys consistently rate the experience highly. Last year’s average score was 3.86 out of 4.

But Chhabildas is quick to point out that the most important outcome is not the number.

A child assessed for dyslexia, for example, does not leave with a label alone. Families receive detailed recommendations for school accommodations, learning programs, tutoring approaches and strategies tailored to that child’s specific situation and needs. Equally important, the clinicians work to identify strengths such as verbal reasoning, spatial creativity, artistic abilities and social skills that can be cultivated alongside challenges.

One parent wrote to the clinic, “Since J has had her diagnosis from you, she feels empowered in a way she never has. You gave us a yellow brick road to follow.”

That sense of direction, faculty members say, is the real measure of success. For the young man writing from across five years of distance, it was the encouragement, twice over, that arrived exactly when he needed it. For J, it was the direction her family needed to support their child. In this moment of renewal for the clinics, with refreshed spaces, reopened doors and a commitment to keeping care within reach for every family, they remain steadfastly oriented toward helping people better understand themselves and leave with a path forward.

Did you enjoy this article?����Passionate about psychology and neuroscience?��Show your support.

��