Uneven Cognitive Development

[justunaccomplishedmummy]

Has anyone herd of this or anyone's DC been diagnosed with this? DD1 (5) was assessed yesterday by an educational psychologist and she said atm this is what she has. Just wondering if anyone has any experience of it.

[justunaccomplishedmummy]

Bump!!

[eclipse]

I'm not sure this is a diagnosis, as such, but a description of test scores. I am assuming the ed psych did a set of tests and your dd had some strengths and weaknesses on whatever test was done. Did the ed psych tell you her scores?

[vjg13]

My daughter has delayed development and on tests all her scores would be low. Other children for eg some with autism present with a more scattered graphs with some low scores and some high.

Not trying to suggest your daughter is autistic it's just an example a head teacher gave me.

[LIZS]

ds(10) has an "uneven learning profile" . It isn't a diagnosis as such , rather based on the EP's assessment of different components of IQ through discussion, appropriate tests and activities. For example ds' verbal comprehension skills scored well in advance of his age and even more so his ability to recall, organise and record them, due to dyspraxia. The interpretation of the results rather depends on the reasoning behind the assessment but such variation would be underlying rather than being specific to her current stage of development . hth

[justunaccomplishedsanta]

Thanks for the replies. It makes sense what you're saying as she's very physically active and sporty yet she can't really read at all, can only write her first name (and even then not in a straight line) and has only just started drawing recognisable pictures after years of scribbling.

The EP has referred her for speech therapy as she feels her speech is very immature. I guess it is for age but I never really noticed as I've learnt how to listen to what she's saying to understand what she means. She does have a stutter which has only developed in the past year.

The EP also said dd seems to have poor social skills for her age which was very true of her 2 years ago when she was 3 and started nursery, but now she's so confident and not at all shy she will talk to anyone now. So I'm really sure I agree with that one.

She has also been referred to occupational therapy. Anyone know what this is? And what it's for?

I'm so glad I joined MN last year as it's been so informative especially on dd's SEN.

[LIZS]

ds has occupational therapy . It uses lots of activities to help the debvelopment of practical and physical skills. It works on different levels - gross and fine motor skills (to aid pencil grip and control, posture, dressing, control in moving about, running, jumping etc and being aware of others' movements), processing information and sequencing (like following instructions and listening), attention span, social interaction and so on - whatever may be applicable. If she has speech issues there may be exercises and activities recommended to support that for example.

[Miggsie]

My uncle is a therapist and says:
Uneven development is where one area (say drawing) is really good but another area really behind (say speech).

He is a speech therapist and gets children who have uneven speech...the receptive speech (listening and understanding others) is fine, but expressive speech (talking) is behind. If expressive speech is behind then social skills generally are too as the child can't communicate effectively with peers, particualrly they find it difficult to suggest a game as they don't have the language to say "why don't we play XXX?"
This gets worse as they get older as the other children tend to leave out the child who can't talk well as they cannot understand them. Adults and older children will make allowances for the poor speech but the child's peers generally don't so the socila skills get even further behind, so therapy to improve the expressive speech is very good and worthwhile as it means the child can make friends.

[havenlady]

If you have been referred for Occupational Therapy - be patient! We had to wait for 2 years for my son who is Dyspraxic. We did use a private one to help him with his handwriting etc, but the NHS one we eventually got was far better - tackled school for us, and helped him devise strategies to get around his problems.
Good luck

[needmorecoffee]

dd has this but its because of her brain injury and her physical impairments. Hard to learn in a normal way if you can't move, ask questions or touch things.
We are trying to work out where her deficits are and fill in those areas - so she didn't know what a door was. She's never opnened and shut one and had us name it. So I have now showed her doors and explained how they work and what they are for.
So concentrate on the deficits and try and make learning fun in those areas. Although a 5 yo who can't read or write her name isn't that unusual I reckon.

[catok]

DS had cognitive development assessed by psychiatry team - he is Asperger's - they said uneven profile was usual or not uncommon. Has helped with getting some OT support, and some emotional help. I can't say it told us anything we didn't know before!

[Helen500]

My son has had an assessment done end of last term and we have had his report today.

His reading came out 8y 1m, comprehension 7y 10m spelling 7yr 6m. He is 7yr 6m. His CE Component score was 73( weak area) his Phonological Loop was 100 (apparently average) and Visual Spatial Sketch Pad was 75 component score(weak area). I will be having a meeting at school shortly but can anyone explain this in my language also what we can do to help. The internet is proving a mind field!!! Any hekp/advice would be appreciated.

[LIZS]

I'll try to dig out ds' later and see if I can shed any light. 100 is age appropriate.

[LIZS]

I can't find an obvious equivalent for "CE" on ds' report,so perhaps terminology varies. Phonological Loop may well be our Verbal Comprehension , so use and understanding of language. I think Visual Spatial is split on ours maybe as Perceptual Reasoning and Processing Speed , which would leave Working Memory ? but all that is conjecture and maybe your assessment had a different focus and definitions. On our report it states that a score of 70 or below is recognised as an area of significant difficulty(2nd percentile) with above this is only a weakness relatively overall. hth

[eclipse]

Helen500, It sounds like the test was the Working Memory Test Battery in which case the CE is the Central Executive. This means the ability to hold and manipulate information in memory, e.g. mental arithmetic. The phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad just hold auditory and visual info and the CE tries to do something with the info. I hope that makes it clearer not worse.