neuropsychologist?

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	So, after we saw a psychiatrist who dx gavin w/ pdd-nos, she referred me to a pediatric neuropsychologist.  Well, the waiting list was 2.5 years...lol.  I work at a hospital (clerical, not medical) and asked around, and was told the neuropsyc. at our hosp. is great.  He is not a pediatric neuropsy though.  well, his waiting list is only til may, so I got appts w/him thru our pediatrician via referral.  the psyc. that referred me to the ped neruopsyc. was kinda annoyed I got a diff. doc, but w/e i wasn't waiting 2 years for an appt....but my main question, after I have beat around the bush now is this.  What exactly is a neuropsychologist? and what is the difference between them and the regular psyc. he is already seeing?  I know that for the eval alone w/ the neuro psyc its 3 appts, 2, 2 hr. appts, and a 3 hr appt. we have only seen his regualr psyc for like half hour to an hour at a time.  is the neuropsyc just a lot more thorough?  We took Payne to a neuropsychologist for his testing and dx. Neuropsychology is an interdisciplinary branch of psychology and neuroscience that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relate to specific psychological processes and overt behaviors. The term neuropsychology has been applied to both lesion studies of humans and animals and efforts to record electrical activity from individual cells (or groups of cells) in higher primates (including some studies of human patients).[1] It is scientific in its approach and shares an information processing view of the mind with cognitive psychology and cognitive science. It is one of the more eclectic of the psychological disciplines, overlapping at times with areas such as neuroscience, philosophy (particularly philosophy of mind), neurology, psychiatry and computer science (particularly by making use of artificial neural networks). In practice neuropsychologists tend to work in academia (involved in basic or clinical research), clinical settings (involved in assessing or treating patients with neuropsychological problems - see clinical neuropsychology), forensic settings (often assessing people for legal reasons or court cases or working with offenders, or appearing in court as expert witness) or industry (often as consultants where neuropsychological knowledge is applied to product design or in the management of pharmaceutical clinical-trials research for drugs that might have a potential impact on CNS functioning). A neuropsych correlates behavior with specific regions in the brain through detailed behavioral testing. They can tell you how neurologically functional your child is, and what specific functional brain problems exist. 2.5 years is insane, I agree. I thought six months was bad. If I were you, I would see if it is possible to travel to another doctor. I'd rather travel 800 miles for a couple of days then wait 2 years, but that's just me. I guess there is no telling whether every neuropsychologist in the country has a waiting list like this. I agree blubird...2.5 yrs is insane, thats y i opted to take him to this neuropsych, not the pediatric one.  i spoke to the director of neurosciences, and he assured me that the dr were seeing is very used to working with children, and loves to do so, he just didn't specialze in peds. like the other doc.  with the insane waiting list.  I will be so happy to get the results of this testing.  I want to know specifics, and it sounds like this is the info I have been wanting....more in depth, and explanitory than the regular psych. thanks for helping me out guys!
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