Outpatient and inpatient psychology care and services for children, teens and young adults
Our skilled pediatric psychologists have advanced training and experience in psychological therapies and services for children, teens and young adults with mental health concerns. We provide assessments, diagnosis and treatment for hospitalized children (inpatients) and outpatients. We work closely with you and your child to tailor our services to meet your family’s needs for mental health support.
Inpatient psychology services
If your child is an inpatient (hospitalized patient) in the hospital at Texas Children’s, their medical team may request a psychological consultation. Our Consultation and Liaison service is a team of pediatric psychologists experienced in working with hospitalized children. One of our psychologists meets with your child for an evaluation, talking with them about their thoughts and feelings.
Depending on our findings in the evaluation, our psychologist may become a crucial part of your child’s medical team. We work closely with your child to help them adjust to the illness, treatment or their hospital stay.
Our psychologist also works with you, your family and your child’s medical team of doctors, nurses, social workers, child life specialists and other care providers. When your child is discharged, we continue to see them as needed for outpatient follow-up visits.
Outpatient psychology services
Our pediatric outpatient services usually take place at the Psychology Service located at:
Sometimes, our providers will meet you at your other outpatient medical appointments in the Wallace Tower.
For nonnative English speakers, we offer language assistance with certified interpreters. Find out more about our language services and other patient and family services.
The Pediatric Neuropsychology Program provides comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations for children, adolescents, and young adults with a wide range of medical, developmental, and neurological conditions.
The Autism Center at Texas Children's Hospital focuses on the care of children who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or who are suspected of having autism spectrum disorder.
Additional Outpatient Programs and Services
Our pediatric psychologists evaluate and treat children and teens with a wide range of anxiety disorders, including:
We take an evidence-based approach to care, with most treatments using exposure-based cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). We may see your child or teen in individual therapy sessions with significant family involvement, or you and other family members may come with your child for family therapy sessions. We tailor our treatments to your child’s specific symptoms, and the number of sessions will depend on the symptoms and your child’s progress.
We provide short-term therapy for parents and their children from age 18 months to 6 years who have behavioral and developmental concerns, including:
Aggression, such as biting or hitting
Defiance, such as refusing to obey
Difficulties in school, including expulsion
Sleep disturbances
Temper tantrums
Our evidence-based approach involves behavioral parent training, and we’ll have you and your child’s teachers complete questionnaires about your child’s behavior to track their improvement. The intervention usually lasts for 6 to 8 visits, and we decide on the number of sessions based on the symptoms and your child’s progress.
Our psychologists evaluate children and teens who have mental health concerns, and we provide diagnoses and treatment recommendations, as appropriate. We specialize in diagnostic intake assessments for:
Children with acute (sudden) or chronic (long-term) illnesses
Children with symptoms or a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder
Preschool-age children with disruptive behaviors
We provide comprehensive psychological evaluations for children, teens and young adults who are receiving care from Texas Children’s medical specialists for a serious medical condition. We work closely with referring providers and other health care providers in many multidisciplinary clinics and services throughout the hospital.
Our psychologists work with children and teens with conditions and treatments including:
Bone marrow transplant
Cancer
Chronic headache
Concussion
Diabetes
Surgery
During the hour-long appointment, our psychologist will ask you and your child about your concerns, including symptoms, health, thoughts and feelings. At the end of the appointment, the psychologist will provide your family with recommendations for a care plan that may include referrals for further evaluation or therapy services.
These referrals may be for services at Texas Children’s or with community providers, depending on a variety of factors. For community referrals, you will meet with our clinic’s social worker to receive more detailed resources based on the psychologist’s recommendations.
Our psychologists provide outpatient follow-up care for children and teens on our Psychology floor and in specialty outpatient clinics at Texas Children’s. All our psychologists are dedicated to using evidence-based treatments, which means that the interventions are well-researched and shown to be effective. Therapy is collaborative, which means that we work together with children, teens, young adults and their families to decide on the goals and treatment plans that are right for them.
We can work with you and your child on concerns and issues such as:
Improving adjustment related to a chronic illness
Effectively managing the demands of medical treatment, such as taking medication
Successfully transitioning back to school after an illness-related absence
Because our team can also see children and teens admitted to Texas Children’s, we may do both inpatient and outpatient follow-up care at times. We provide pediatric psychology outpatient care for toddlers through young adults with acute and chronic illnesses and injuries.
Our team focuses on increasing access to behavioral health care for youth and families who experience systemic barriers to care in traditional settings. The MBHU partners with several public schools that have many students and families facing challenges in accessing behavioral health care for a variety of reasons. Many of these students have experienced devastating traumas, including physical and sexual abuse, sex trafficking or exposure to torture or severe domestic violence, and personal losses, such as death of a close family member or friend from suicide, domestic violence or gun violence. Our bilingual clinicians provide high-quality, individualized and evidence-based therapeutic screening, assessment and psychological treatment focused on trauma, anxiety, depression and grief.
