Understanding Common Terms
These definitions are meant to make some of the language used in mental health, learning, development, and neuropsychology easier to understand. You may hear these terms during an evaluation, in treatment, at school or work, or while navigating your own or your child's care.
What is a neuropsychological evaluation?
Think of a neuropsychological evaluation as a closer look at how your brain uniquely thinks, learns, remembers, and pays attention, and how you manage emotions and behavior. The goal is to better understand your individual pattern of strengths and challenges: Why might something be harder? What is working well? How do the pieces fit together?
That information can help clarify a diagnosis when appropriate and, just as importantly, lead to practical recommendations and support for school, work, home, and everyday life. The aim is not simply to give something a label — it is to better understand the person behind it.
Anxiety
Worry, fear, and nervousness are normal human emotions that everyone experiences. Sometimes, though, those feelings become stronger, last longer, or start taking up too much space — affecting friendships, family life, school or work, sleep, or the things a person wants or needs to do.
An anxiety disorder may be diagnosed when fear or worry becomes persistent or intense enough to cause real distress or interfere with everyday life. There are several different anxiety disorders, and anxiety does not look exactly the same in everyone.
Anxiety can also show up in the body — a racing heart, stomachaches, headaches, sweating, muscle tension, restlessness, or trouble sleeping. You may hear a provider call these "somatic symptoms." Children may not have the words to say "I feel anxious," and instead may show more irritability, tearfulness, avoidance, frequent need for reassurance, difficulty separating from a caregiver, or physical complaints.
Depression
Sadness, disappointment, and frustration are normal and important human emotions. Sometimes, for reasons unique to each person, those feelings begin to persist and affect how someone feels and functions day to day.
Depression can include feeling down, empty, or irritable, and/or losing interest or enjoyment in things that were once enjoyable. It can also affect sleep, appetite, energy, motivation, concentration, and how a person feels about themselves. For major depressive disorder, symptoms last at least two weeks and represent a meaningful change from how the person usually feels or functions.
Depression does not always look like obvious sadness. In children and teens, it may appear more as irritability, withdrawal, boredom, low motivation, physical complaints, or loss of interest in friends and activities. Two people can share the same diagnosis and still experience it very differently. Depression is treatable.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Everyone is distracted, forgetful, or restless at times. ADHD is different in degree: the brain's systems for paying attention, staying organized, managing impulses, remembering, and getting started on tasks work differently and can take more effort.
ADHD can show up through inattention (trouble staying focused, losing things, forgetting responsibilities, difficulty getting organized or finishing tasks), through hyperactivity and impulsivity (frequent movement or fidgeting, difficulty waiting, interrupting, restlessness, acting before thinking), or through a combination of both.
ADHD can also look different across the lifespan. A child may lose schoolwork or need repeated reminders; a teenager may feel overwhelmed juggling school, activities, and growing independence; an adult may struggle with time management, unfinished projects, forgetfulness, or feel that everyday organization takes far more effort than it seems to for others.
For a diagnosis, these patterns begin in childhood, are greater than expected for a person's developmental level, show up in more than one part of life, and interfere with everyday functioning. ADHD is not a reflection of intelligence, motivation, or how hard someone is trying.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autism is a developmental difference that shapes how a person communicates, connects with others, and experiences the world.
An autistic person may communicate or express emotions differently, have deep or highly focused interests, prefer routine and predictability, use repetitive movements, or experience sounds, lights, textures, or touch more or less intensely than others. These differences begin early in development, though they are not always recognized right away — some people are identified as autistic in early childhood, while others come to recognize themselves as autistic in adolescence or adulthood.
Autism looks different from one person to the next. Someone may need a lot of support in one area and very little in another, and strengths and challenges can shift with the environment, expectations, and stage of life. There is no single known cause; genetics play a large role, along with other factors that influence early brain development.
Learning Disabilities/Specific Learning Disorder
You may hear "learning disorder," "specific learning disorder," or "learning disability" during your care, at school, or in your chart.
A learning disability is an ongoing difficulty developing a particular academic skill — such as reading, writing, or math — that is greater than expected and not explained by overall ability or lack of good teaching. Someone can be strong in most areas of learning and still find one specific skill much harder. This is not about how hard a person is trying or what they are capable of achieving; sometimes a person is putting in enormous effort and still wondering, "Why is this so much harder for me?"
Understanding exactly where learning becomes difficult — and where it does not — can take some of the mystery and frustration out of the experience and point toward teaching strategies, accommodations, and supports that fit how that person learns.
Common Learning Differences
Dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia describe differences in learning specific skills — not a person's overall intelligence, effort, or potential.
• Dyslexia (reading): Dyslexia makes accurate, fluent reading and spelling harder, largely because connecting the sounds in spoken words to the letters on the page takes more effort. Understanding is often just fine when material is read aloud — the difficulty is in decoding the printed words. It is not a problem with vision, intelligence, or effort.
• Dysgraphia (writing): Dysgraphia is significant difficulty with writing. For some, the physical act of handwriting is slow, effortful, or hard to read; for others, spelling or getting thoughts onto the page is the harder part. A person may know exactly what they want to say, but putting it into written words is where things get difficult.
• Dyscalculia (math): Dyscalculia makes understanding and working with numbers harder — developing a feel for quantities ("number sense"), remembering basic math facts, estimating, or doing calculations accurately or quickly. Someone can struggle with math while doing very well in other subjects.
Emotional Disturbance
"Emotional disturbance" is a term you may see in school records or hear during conversations about school support services. It is an educational category — not a description of a child's personality or character, and not, by itself, a medical diagnosis. Schools use it as part of deciding whether a student qualifies for certain services.
It may apply when emotional or behavioral difficulties have lasted a significant amount of time and are substantially affecting a student's education — for example, significant anxiety, persistent low mood, difficulty building or keeping relationships, physical symptoms related to emotional distress, or emotional and behavioral responses that get in the way of learning. Its purpose is practical: to understand what may be getting in the way of a student's education and whether more support is needed.
Behavioral Functioning
"Behavioral functioning" is a way of describing how someone manages and responds to everyday life — how a person handles frustration, manages impulses, follows routines, adapts when plans change, regulates emotions, interacts with others, and responds to expectations at home, school, work, or in the community.
Behavior can also give us information. Instead of stopping at "What is this person doing?" it can help to ask, "Why might this be happening?" or "What is this behavior telling us?" Looking at behavioral functioning highlights both what is going well and where more support might help. It is not a judgment about "good" or "bad" behavior, and it is not a diagnosis by itself.
Twice Exceptional (2e)
"Twice exceptional," often shortened to "2e," describes someone who has areas of particularly high ability or talent while also having a developmental or learning difference such as ADHD, autism, or a learning disability.
Sometimes these two sides hide each other. A student with strong reasoning skills may compensate for ADHD or dyslexia well enough to keep earning good grades — while quietly putting in far more time and effort than peers. Other times, difficulties with attention, behavior, reading, or writing are so noticeable that a person's exceptional abilities are overlooked. In other words, strengths can mask challenges, and challenges can mask strengths.
Recognizing both matters. A person may need accommodations or support in one area while also needing opportunities that challenge and build on their strengths. Looking at the whole pattern gives a much fuller understanding of a person than any single score, symptom, or diagnosis.
For further information, references are available here.