Jennifer Terranova
Psychological Testing, Psychoeducation, and Psychosocial Support
My primary role at Sandstone is that of a psychometrician. I specialize in the reliability and validity of psychological testing. I assist in administering our psychological assessments to aid in clarifying diagnoses of developmental, cognitive, behavioral, and other mental health conditions. While I assess people across the lifespan, I especially enjoy working with children and adolescents. As a psychometrician, I help identify a person’s support needs.
I also enjoy being a part of clients’ support team by providing psycho-social and behavioral support. In this role, I assist clients in improving, accommodating, or modifying aspects of their lives to ultimately increase their functioning and life satisfaction. This includes helping people who struggle with maintaining attention and focus, regulating their emotional experiences, managing their impulse control, communicating effectively, and learning techniques for learning differences (e.g., dyslexia, math disability).
Under the umbrella of my psychosocial support work, I have developed an education program to help parents improve their parenting strategies. Rather than teaching parents a set of standard parenting strategies, my individualized approach identifies evidence-based strategies that best suit a specific family’s needs and assists them with practicing and implementing those techniques. Some of the keystones of this educational program involve increasing proactive and empathic parent-child interactions, which nurtures and protects the parent-child relationship. In addition to consulting with parents individually. I also facilitate parenting workshops, including several that are specific to parents of neurodivergent children.
Education and Experience
My path to a career in psychology has been a winding one. I graduated from the International School of Berne, Switzerland before moving to Las Vegas, where I earned a BA in Psychology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Before beginning graduate school, I worked as the executive director of a non-profit organization that provided transitional housing to homeless women and their children. I also worked on a freelance basis as a writer for several resort-casinos in-room magazines. In 2010, I began a doctoral program in Clinical Psychology at UNLV, focusing on neuropsychological assessment, under the supervision and mentorship of Dr. Daniel Allen. I did not complete the doctoral program, as I made the difficult decision to leave the program in 2015, after the birth of my daughter, whose special needs became my necessary priority.
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It has been such a joy to remain active in the psychology community and a part of the professional practice of psychological assessment. I have worked in psychological testing since 2011 and have broad experience with the assessment of children and adults. My approach to testing is highly interpersonal, prioritizing strong rapport and careful observation of clinical symptoms in order to ensure the most accurate diagnosis. Since arriving at Sandstone, I have worked closely with licensed staff to build our Psychological Testing Clinic, which provides quality, comprehensive, strengths-based evaluations that are sensitive to the needs to each client. It is my sincere belief that psychodiagnostics testing can be a therapeutic undertaking – one that is as valuable in its process as its outcome.
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Personal Interests
I am a mom of five children; four grown and out of the house, and my youngest still in elementary school. I also am so excited to have been promoted to Grandma and enjoy spending time with my two young grandchildren (and letting their parents get some rest). We are a tight-knit crew, and many of my interests center around family activities. I love to cook and bake, and I have been an avid reader since childhood. I also enjoy singing and (admittedly, badly) playing piano. I travel to Colorado frequently, where my parents and one of my sons live, and make the trek to my home state of Massachusetts to visit the rest of my family every few years.