Ed psych assessment this weekend

[mamaslatts]

I have been worried about DS (age 6) who is in Y2. Since reception he seems to have been behind his peers academically. I've always been told 'he's fine, he'll catch up, summer born, etc' although his teacher last year did put some extra help in place (1 or 2 extra sessions a week). I mentioned to his new teacher that he is quite behind and he just said 'Yes, he is' but didn't really offer support.
For context, his reading level is 4 of the Biff/Chip. Often he doesn't know the high frequency words such as 'there' or 'this', he always sounds out 'd' as 'b' and his writing is often illegible. He is supposed to be doing cursive writing this year which is a joke. Maths is quite basic, he often asks whether 'thirteen' is a one and a three.
So, he is having a private assessment this weekend, I just wondered if anyone else had done this and what the outcome was?
thanks very much

[alwaysfancywine]

as far as I know, ed psychs etc won't diagnose something like dyslexia, ADD etc until a child is at least 7. they can only say there are signs of x, y, z ... this was my experience of getting a private assessment of my then 6 year old. now that he is 7.5, we have been recommended to have another assessment (at a cost of £800+)!! Good luck!

[user1475698402]

Hi as a mum of two children who are severely dyslexic and was told by the Education System 'they will catch up' to be in a situation that they are now both 3 years academically behind I would most definitely suggest an SpLD assessment. I paid for both my children to have them done and it was worth every penny. Most professional SpLD assessors will charge a fee (ours was £50) to do a screening if from this they feel a full assessment is required we then paid the full amount minus the £50. For us we paid £380 per child. We are in Devon, not sure on your location. Get things in motion now is my advice, don't wait for the LEA, however do make sure that the Assessor is fully qualified to conduct the assessment otherwise the LEA won't acknowledge it. Contact British Dyslexia Association, SpLD trust, Dyslexia Action for qualified assessors. Hope some of this helps.

[alwaysfancywine]

Thank you User. Can I just ask what is SpLD? Also, my son is in a private school so I don't know if we have the same access...? I bloody hope so, money is tight. £50 and £380 is far more palatable. Thanks

[user1475698402]

Specific Learning Disability. It was encompasses things like dyslexia, dysbraxi and other co occurring learning disabilities. www.thedyslexia-spldtrust.org.uk/

If you contact British Dyslexia Assocation - there are normally people within each county that can screen and then let you know if a full assessment is required.

There are some great private schools which provide fantastic support. Mainstream is a mindfield - this I know!!

[mamaslatts]

Thank you for your helpful posts. He had his assessment at the weekend, it lasted about 3 hours (with breaks for cake!) He has not done the formal report/scoring from the assessments yet but said that yes, he felt that my son does have dyslexia. He showed me specific examples of answers DS had given. He was fine with the cognitive/ability section but, as expected, the reading/writing assessment he really struggled with.

I will wait for the formal report before talking to the school. The ed pysch has also recommended an optomitrist (sorry about the spelling!) assessment as well.

We are in London, the person was recommended by well respected dyslexia centre and the assessment cost £650. I have heard people pay far more. It does make me angry that for many families they would be nowhere near able to pay this and would be stuck with the reassurances that their child would catch up.
always my older son is 10 and all his friends who have been diagnosed with dyslexia have gone private. I think the problem is as long as a child makes some progress in school, no matter how slow/small it seems to be accepted that that is just their ability level rather than their might be a problem.

[Didiplanthis]

My yr 2 dd had a private ed psych appointment recently as although she was still 'exceeding' at school she had plateaud completely through yr 1 and had lost all her confidence and enthusiasm. It was £500 They gave a very detailed report with loads of suggestions which school have been very receptive too and the difference is already very noticeable. Really glad we did it. We will get another one done in year 4 as they wouldn't formally diagnose dyslexia at her age but identified massive discrepancies in her ability 97th centile and visual processing 7 th centile which explains all her difficulties and frustrations and identifies techniques to help with a 'formal' dyslexia diagnosis. This is why we went down the ed psych route not pure dyslexia assessment even though it cost more.

[Rose2016]

I used a London based company for my daughter. Ed Psych Direct.
Email:- [email protected].

In our case the psychologist couldn't state SpLD, she was able to provide strategies specific to my daughter's learning styles as highlighted by the robust assessment. She also signposted me to useful resources. It was extremely helpful as the psychologist explained the findings to my daughter & discussed ways forward.

I initially had pushed the school & managed to see the local EP but found her assessment very basic compared to the private assessment. I wouldn't recommend Dyslexia Action.

Best of luck

[user1475698402]

We used Dyslexia Specialist who is also a SpLD specialist, unfortunately the Ed Psych report done by our LEA was as useful as treacle.

I have two that are dyslexic and needed assessing, but it was worth every penny, very detailed and the information has been so powerful. I do agree though that if you have the money you can get the support and education you need. If you are in mainstream, finding a school with the specialist teachers is like gold dust. For my son I have now had no choice but to instruct a solicitor, not at all what I wanted but I have been left with no choice. There are some amazing schools out there doing amazing things, if you have the money, CReSTeD is a good place to look if that becomes something you need to consider.

My advice to anyone is assess early and get the help early. My son is 3 years behind and his confidence is being affected all because we had no idea what the difficulties were and nobody was advising us to seek assessment.