Educational Psychologist in Denver
You’ve watched your child work twice as hard as their classmates for half the results. You’ve sat through parent-teacher conferences where the feedback is vague — “they just need to focus more” or “they’re not working to their potential.” You’ve trusted your instincts that something more specific is going on, and you’ve been searching for someone who can actually tell you what it is. That search ends here.
ElevateU is a Denver-based educational psychology practice specializing in psychoeducational assessment, gifted and talented identification, and twice-exceptional (2e) evaluation
— serving families across the Denver Metro from our Cherry Creek office at 90 Madison St Suite 304. Led by Ashley Vacante, Ed.D., NCSP, a Nationally Certified School Psychologist with a doctorate from the University of Denver specializing in gifted and twice-exceptional students, our team approach brings together parents, students, and school staff to build the most appropriate plan for your child.
For a step-by-step plan tailored to your child’s unique learning profile, contact us today.
ElevateU 90 Madison St Suite 304, Denver, CO | (303) 691-2020
Why Denver Families Navigate the Cherry Creek Neighborhood to Find Real Answers
Denver’s public school system — from South High School in Washington Park to the schools serving the Central Park neighborhood in 80238 — operates under Colorado’s unique Advanced Learning Plan (ALP) framework and the federal requirements of IDEA and Section 504. That combination creates a specific and often confusing landscape for families: a district that is legally required to provide services, but whose internal assessments are designed to determine eligibility, not to build a full picture of your child’s cognitive strengths and areas of need.
A private psychoeducational educational evaluation in Denver does something a district-administered assessment is not designed to do: it builds a complete, individualized learning profile that belongs to you and your child — not to the school’s eligibility process.
ElevateU’s Cherry Creek location — in the heart of Denver’s professional corridor near Speer Boulevard and accessible from neighborhoods including Washington Park, the Highlands, and Central Park — was chosen intentionally. Families from across Denver Metro, including the 80211 area and the Denver Tech Center (DTC) corridor along I-25, make the drive to our office because the clarity they receive here is not available anywhere else in their zip code.
Services we provide to Denver Metro families include:
Finding Our Office in Cherry Creek
ElevateU is located at 90 Madison St Suite 304 in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood, one of the city’s most accessible professional districts.
Our office sits within the Cherry Creek North area, close to Speer Boulevard — one of Denver’s primary arterial corridors connecting the Highlands and downtown neighborhoods to the southeast. Families traveling from Washington Park are approximately 10 minutes away. Those coming from the Central Park neighborhood near 80238 will find us easily accessible via Colorado Boulevard. Families from the Highlands and the 80211 zip code can reach us via Speer Boulevard directly.
Denver Neighborhoods We Serve
ElevateU’s Cherry Creek office is the educational psychology resource for families across the Denver Metro.
We regularly work with families from:
- Washington Park and the South High School corridor
- Central Park (Stapleton) and the 80238 zip code
- The Highlands and the 80211 area
- Lowry and the Hilltop neighborhood
- Cherry Creek North and the Speer Boulevard corridor
- Glendale, Englewood, and communities along the Denver Tech Center (DTC) and I-25 corridor
Every neighborhood in Denver Metro brings a slightly different school context — different district policies, different charter school configurations, different levels of familiarity with the ALP process and 2e identification. ElevateU’s direct experience inside Denver Metro public and private schools means we understand those differences and can help you navigate them specifically.
What a Psychoeducational Assessment Actually Tells You — and What a School Evaluation Doesn’t
A private psychoeducational assessment from ElevateU provides a complete cognitive and achievement profile that a standard school evaluation is not structured to deliver. Denver Public Schools’ internal assessments are designed to answer one question: does this student qualify for special education services under IDEA? ElevateU’s evaluations are designed to answer a different, more useful question: how does this specific child learn, and what does the team around them need to do about it?
Here is what that distinction means in practice for Denver families:
When a child at a Denver Metro school is referred for evaluation, the school’s psychologist is working within a system that has defined eligibility thresholds. A student who falls just outside those thresholds — who is clearly navigating real challenges but doesn’t meet the cutoff — is often sent home without a plan. Families in Washington Park, Lowry, and Hilltop tell us the same story: the school said there was “nothing to qualify for,” but the child is still not reading at grade level, still melting down over homework, still underperforming on every timed test.
That gap is exactly where ElevateU works.
Ashley Vacante’s evaluation process uses the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition (WISC-V), the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT), and a battery of behavioral and social-emotional inventories to build a profile that no single district-administered test captures. The WISC-V’s Processing Speed Index, for example, is a metric that directly informs whether a student qualifies for extended time accommodations on Colorado’s standardized assessments and, later, on College Board exams like the SAT and ACT. That data point alone can change the trajectory of a student’s academic career — but only if someone runs the assessment and explains what the numbers mean.
We don’t hand you a 20-page report and send you home. Every evaluation at ElevateU concludes with a feedback session where Ashley walks your family through each finding in plain language, explains what it means for your child’s day-to-day experience in a Denver classroom, and outlines a step-by-step plan for what comes next — whether that’s an IEP meeting, a 504 application, an ALP recommendation, or a referral to a specific support provider in the Denver Metro area.
The Evaluations We Provide
Cognitive (IQ) Testing — WISC-V and WPPSI
Cognitive testing measures how your child processes and uses information — it is not a measure of how hard they work or how much they know. The WISC-V is the gold standard for school-age children and provides index scores across five domains: Verbal Comprehension, Visual Spatial, Fluid Reasoning, Working Memory, and Processing Speed. Each of these indices tells a different part of the story.
For Denver families navigating the Advanced Learning Plan process, a high Verbal Comprehension score paired with a lower Processing Speed index is one of the most common profiles we identify — a child who thinks at a sophisticated level but cannot demonstrate that sophistication on timed district assessments. That discrepancy is clinically meaningful, legally actionable, and almost always invisible to a teacher without formal testing.
Academic Achievement and Learning Profile — WIAT and Woodcock-Johnson
Achievement testing measures what a student has actually learned relative to what is expected for their age and grade — and identifies where a specific learning challenge is interfering with that acquisition. The Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT) and Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement allow Ashley to isolate whether a reading challenge is rooted in phonological processing (the hallmark of dyslexia), written expression (the hallmark of dysgraphia), or mathematical reasoning — distinctions that require different interventions and different school accommodations.
Denver Metro families often come to us after years of tutoring that hasn’t moved the needle. In most of those cases, the tutoring was addressing the symptom — slow reading, messy handwriting, incomplete assignments — without identifying the underlying area of need. Achievement testing gives us the clinical specificity to match the intervention to the actual challenge.
Gifted and Talented Identification — Colorado ALP Qualification
Colorado’s Advanced Learning Plan (ALP) process requires documented evidence of exceptional ability — and ElevateU’s evaluations are structured to provide exactly that documentation. Ashley’s doctoral specialization from the University of Denver focused specifically on the identification, academic, and social-emotional needs of gifted and talented students. That is not a generalist credential. It means she understands the specific cognitive markers that distinguish a high-achieving student from a student with a truly exceptional learning profile — and she knows how to translate those markers into the language Denver Public Schools and the Colorado Department of Education require for ALP designation.
Twice-Exceptional (2e) Identification
Twice-exceptional students are among the most underserved in Denver’s public school system — and among the most frequently misidentified. A 2e student has both exceptional cognitive ability and a learning difference or neurodevelopmental challenge: a student who scores in the 95th percentile on fluid reasoning but cannot produce a legible paragraph. A student whose verbal comprehension is two standard deviations above average but whose working memory makes multi-step math impossible without accommodations.
The challenge with 2e identification is that the two profiles cancel each other out on surface-level observation. Teachers see an average student. Parents see a child who is clearly capable but inexplicably inconsistent. The discrepancy between potential and performance is the signal — and finding it requires the kind of comprehensive cognitive mapping that only a doctoral-level evaluation provides.
ElevateU’s 2e identification process also addresses the specific complexity of differentiating a twice-exceptional gifted profile from a mild Autism Spectrum profile in early childhood — a distinction that requires careful attention to the psychometric markers of asynchronous gifted development versus the social-communication patterns associated with ASD.
Executive Functioning and Attention Diagnostics
Executive functioning deficits and working memory constraints look similar from the outside but require fundamentally different interventions. A child who cannot organize a multi-step homework assignment may be experiencing a true executive functioning challenge — difficulty with planning, initiation, and task monitoring. Or they may have a working memory constraint that makes it impossible to hold the steps of the assignment in mind long enough to execute them. These are neurologically distinct challenges, and treating one with the other’s intervention produces no results.
ElevateU’s attention and executive functioning assessment isolates these two profiles — and, critically, distinguishes both from a primary ADHD presentation. This distinction matters enormously for Denver families navigating the question of whether to pursue a medical evaluation with a pediatrician or psychiatrist alongside the educational evaluation, and what the appropriate school-based response looks like under Colorado’s MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Support) framework.
Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE)
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Colorado families have the right to request an Independent Educational Evaluation at public expense if they disagree with their school district’s evaluation findings. ElevateU provides IEEs that are fully compliant with federal and Colorado Department of Education requirements — meaning the results are legally admissible in the IEP and 504 processes and cannot be dismissed by the district simply because they came from a private provider.
If Denver Public Schools or another district in the Denver Metro area has told you your child does not qualify for services, and you believe that finding is incomplete or inaccurate, an IEE is your legal right. Ashley will walk you through the process from the initial request letter through the final evaluation report.
School Navigation:
Translating What We Find Into What Happens Next
The evaluation report is not the finish line — it is the starting point for building the most appropriate plan for your child.
ElevateU’s team approach means Ashley does not disappear after the feedback session. She is available to attend IEP meetings, to communicate directly with school staff about the evaluation findings, and to help families understand the difference between what a school is legally required to provide and what additional support might be available through private providers in the Denver Metro area.
For families navigating the 504 Plan process — which provides accommodations without the full special education designation of an IEP — ElevateU’s evaluation reports are structured to include the specific clinical language that Colorado school districts require to approve accommodation requests. Extended time on assessments, preferential seating, reduced-distraction testing environments, and access to assistive technology are all accommodations that flow directly from the metrics in a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation. They do not happen automatically. They happen because a qualified evaluator documented the need in terms the school’s 504 coordinator is required to accept.
For families pursuing an Advanced Learning Plan (ALP) for a gifted student, ElevateU’s evaluation provides the documented evidence of exceptional ability that Colorado’s gifted education framework requires. An ALP is not a reward for good grades — it is a legally mandated individualized plan for students whose learning needs exceed what standard grade-level instruction provides. Getting one requires the same kind of documented assessment that any other educational plan requires.
For a full picture of how ElevateU supports Denver Metro families across all of our services, visit our Denver family support services page.
Meet Ashley Vacante, Ed.D., NCSP — ElevateU’s Lead Educational Psychologist in Denver
Meet Ashley Vacante, ElevateU’s Lead Educational Psychologist and Nationally Certified School Psychologist.
Ashley earned her doctorate from the University of Denver with a specialization in the identification, academic, and social-emotional needs of gifted and talented students — a focus that was deliberate, because she had seen firsthand how often exceptional students are missed by systems designed to identify deficits rather than strengths. Before founding ElevateU, she worked directly inside Denver Metro public and private school systems, which means she understands not just the clinical side of educational evaluation but the institutional landscape families are navigating when they walk into an IEP meeting or request a 504 accommodation.
Her credentials include an Ed.D. from the University of Denver, an M.S. and Ed.S. in School Psychology from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and a B.S. in Psychology from St. Joseph’s University. She holds the Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) designation through the National Association of School Psychology (NASP) — the field’s highest national credential for school psychologists.
What parents consistently tell us is that Ashley made the testing feel like games, that she caught the “stealth dyslexia” the school had missed for three years, that she walked them through the IEP meeting when they had no idea what they were agreeing to, and that she identified the masking behaviors their daughter had developed so effectively that no one at school had noticed anything was wrong. That is the work. That is what a credentialed educational psychologist in Denver who has spent years inside these school systems actually does.ElevateU is a member of the National Association of School Psychology (NASP) — the national professional organization that sets the standards for school psychology practice, ethics, and credentialing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does a private psychoeducational evaluation from ElevateU differ from the free testing provided by Denver Public Schools?
Denver Public Schools’ evaluations are designed to determine whether a student meets the eligibility threshold for special education services under IDEA — they are not designed to build a complete picture of how your child learns. ElevateU’s private evaluations use a broader battery of assessments, including the full WISC-V with all five index scores, achievement testing across multiple academic domains, and behavioral and social-emotional inventories, to produce a comprehensive learning profile that belongs to your family. That profile can be used to pursue an IEP, a 504 Plan, an Advanced Learning Plan (ALP), or private intervention support — and it cannot be dismissed by the district simply because it came from an outside provider. Under IDEA, Denver families also have the legal right to request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at public expense if they disagree with the district’s findings.
Can Ashley Vacante identify ADHD, or do I need to see a pediatrician or psychiatrist separately?
ElevateU provides educational identification of attention and executive functioning profiles — meaning the evaluation will document whether a student’s cognitive profile is consistent with ADHD (Inattentive, Hyperactive, or Combined presentation) and will produce the clinical documentation that schools require to implement 504 accommodations or IEP services related to attention. A medical diagnosis of ADHD, if needed for medication management, requires a separate evaluation by a pediatrician or child psychiatrist. Ashley will be clear with your family about what the educational evaluation establishes and what a medical consultation would add — so you can make an informed decision about next steps without duplicating effort or expense.
What is the difference between an IEP and a 504 Plan for Denver Metro families, and which one does a psychoeducational evaluation support?
An Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a special education document under IDEA that provides specialized instruction and related services for students who meet eligibility criteria in one of thirteen specific disability categories. A 504 Plan is a civil rights accommodation document under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act that provides adjustments — extended time, reduced-distraction testing, preferential seating — for students whose challenge substantially limits a major life activity, including learning. ElevateU’s evaluations are structured to support both. The WISC-V Processing Speed Index score, for example, is one of the most direct clinical metrics used to justify extended time accommodations under a 504 Plan in Colorado schools — and Ashley’s reports include the specific language Denver Metro school districts require to approve those requests.
What does the WISC-V tell you about whether my child might be twice-exceptional (2e)?
The WISC-V’s five index scores — Verbal Comprehension, Visual Spatial, Fluid Reasoning, Working Memory, and Processing Speed — are most revealing for 2e identification when there is a significant discrepancy between them. A student who scores in the Very Superior range on Verbal Comprehension and Fluid Reasoning, but in the Average or Below Average range on Working Memory and Processing Speed, is displaying the classic 2e profile: exceptional intellectual ability masked by a processing challenge that makes standard academic performance inconsistent. That discrepancy is clinically meaningful and legally actionable — it is the basis for both gifted identification under Colorado’s ALP framework and accommodation eligibility under a 504 Plan. Ashley’s evaluation process is specifically designed to surface these discrepancies rather than average them away.
How does ElevateU distinguish between executive functioning challenges and working memory constraints in students who appear to have ADHD?
These two profiles overlap significantly at the surface — both produce disorganized homework, incomplete assignments, and difficulty following multi-step directions — but they are neurologically distinct and require different interventions. Executive functioning challenges involve the brain’s planning, initiation, and monitoring systems: a student who genuinely cannot begin a task or sequence its steps. Working memory constraints involve the brain’s temporary information-holding capacity: a student who begins a task but loses track of where they are in it. Ashley’s assessment battery isolates these two profiles using specific WISC-V subtests and supplementary executive functioning measures, and the evaluation report distinguishes them clearly — because the school-based intervention for one is different from the intervention for the other, and conflating them is one of the most common sources of ineffective IEP goals in Denver Metro schools.
How often does a psychoeducational evaluation need to be updated to maintain testing accommodations for the SAT, ACT, or AP exams?
The College Board and ACT generally require that documentation supporting accommodation requests be current — typically within three to five years for students with stable profiles, and more recently for students whose needs have changed significantly. For Denver high school students planning to request extended time or other accommodations on the SAT, ACT, or AP exams, Ashley recommends reviewing the timing of the original evaluation during the freshman or sophomore year to ensure the documentation will still be within the College Board’s acceptable window at the time of testing. ElevateU can provide updated evaluations or supplementary documentation as needed, and Ashley is familiar with the specific submission requirements of both the College Board’s Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) program and the ACT’s accommodation request process.
What should I expect when I bring my child to ElevateU’s Cherry Creek office for a psychoeducational evaluation?
Our office at 90 Madison St Suite 304, Denver, CO 80206 is designed to feel calm and approachable — not clinical. For most children, the assessment process is structured to feel more like a series of engaging tasks and games than a formal test, which is intentional: a child who is relaxed and engaged produces a more accurate cognitive profile than a child who is anxious about being evaluated. A comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation typically takes place across one to two sessions, with a parent feedback meeting scheduled after Ashley has scored and interpreted the results. We ask that parents plan to be available for the feedback session, because the conversation about what the results mean — and what the step-by-step plan looks like — is as important as the evaluation itself. Parking is available near our Cherry Creek location, and Ashley’s team will confirm all session logistics with you when you schedule.