Every client aged 10 and up at Little Dove Psychology completes two brief validated questionnaires every four weeks: the GAD-7 for anxiety and the PHQ-9 for mood. Children under 10 complete a short goal-progress measure instead. Scores are graphed in the chart, and your clinician reviews them with you. You do not have to guess whether therapy is helping. You can see it.
Why we do it
Evidence-based care is not only a matter of which treatment a clinician chooses. It is also a matter of checking whether the treatment is doing what the evidence says it should, for this client, in this course of therapy.
That is what the questionnaires are for. We use validated instruments, administered the way they were designed to be administered, on a fixed schedule rather than whenever someone remembers. The result is a record your clinician can actually reason from: not an impression of how the last few weeks went, but a line showing what has changed since treatment started.
Then it gets used. If the numbers say the approach is working, we keep going. If they say it is not, we change something, and we would rather know that in week eight than in month eight. The literature on routine outcome monitoring is clearest on exactly this point: its value shows up in the cases that are drifting, where measurement catches early what a clinician’s impression alone might not.
What we measure
- GAD-7. Seven questions about anxiety over the past two weeks. Takes about a minute.
- PHQ-9. Nine questions about mood over the same period.
- SP-GAM. Five questions about progress toward the specific goal your family named at intake. This one matters more than it looks. Symptom scales tell you about symptoms; they do not tell you whether the thing you actually came in for is getting better.
Clients aged 10 and up complete all three. Children under 10 complete the SP-GAM only, because the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 have not been validated for children that young and a number produced by the wrong instrument is worse than no number. For most younger children and many teens, a parent completes the measures.
How it runs
The questionnaires arrive in your client portal every four weeks. They take two or three minutes. They are scored automatically and plotted over time, so what your clinician sees is not a single number but a line.
That line comes into the next session. Your clinician reviews it, tells you what it shows, and writes down what they are doing about it. That last part is not administrative housekeeping. A score that gets collected and never discussed has done nothing for anybody.
When a score moves the wrong way
It happens, and it is not a verdict. Scores rise during exam season, after a breakup, when a family moves, and in the weeks when a kid finally starts talking about something hard instead of avoiding it. Sometimes a number going up is the first sign that treatment is working.
What we do is bring it into the room. A score that has moved the wrong way gets discussed at the next session, and often it changes the plan: a different skill, a different pace, a conversation with parents, occasionally a referral for a medication consult. The point of measuring is not to be reassured. It is to notice.
What the questionnaires will not tell you
They are not diagnostic. A high GAD-7 means a child reported a lot of anxiety symptoms in the past fortnight, not that they have an anxiety disorder. Diagnosis takes a clinician.
They are not a substitute for clinical judgment, and we do not treat them as one. If the numbers look fine and your clinician is worried, the worry wins.
And they cannot tell you what a single score means on its own. A first questionnaire is a starting point, nothing more. The information is in the direction of travel over months, which is exactly why we keep collecting them rather than doing it once at intake and filing it.
Common questions
How often will my child fill out questionnaires?
Every four weeks. Clients aged 10 and up at Little Dove Psychology complete the GAD-7 and PHQ-9; children under 10 complete a brief goal-progress measure instead. Each round takes two or three minutes in the client portal.
Which measures does Little Dove Psychology use?
The GAD-7 for anxiety, the PHQ-9 for mood, and the SP-GAM, a five-question measure of progress toward the goal the family identified at intake. Clients 10 and older complete all three.
Why do children under 10 get a different questionnaire?
The GAD-7 and PHQ-9 were developed and validated for adolescents and adults, not for young children. Rather than apply them outside the age range they were built for, Little Dove uses a short goal-progress measure for children under 10.
Do parents see the scores?
Yes. Your clinician reviews the results with you and explains what the trend shows. The measures exist to make progress visible to the family, not to sit in a chart.
What if the scores get worse?
A rising score is information, not a failure. It gets discussed at the next session and often changes the treatment plan. Scores commonly rise during stressful periods, and sometimes they rise when a child first starts addressing something they had been avoiding.
Working with us
We are a fully virtual practice, licensed in Texas and able to see clients in PSYPACT states. Most families have a first session an average of five days from first contact, with evening and weekend appointments. Sessions are $225 with a licensed psychologist and $150 with a licensed psychological associate, and we are in network with Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, and Optum (UnitedHealthcare).
Call or text (512) 240-2633, or book your free 15-minute consultation.