I refused psych assessment on my 4 year old, am I a bad mummy?

[mebadmummy]

Just to explain a little background, my 4yo ds had stopped talking at playschool and was not progressing with speech, so I requested a speech and language assessment. He refused to speak to the therapist in anything other than a whisper during the assessment, so she asked for him to come back with someone else the following week, so dh took him and the same thing happened. The therapist then said she felt that a psycology assessment would be in order because of his not wanting to speak.

I was not happy with this, but instead persued my own train of thinking that it was ds' hearing that was the problem. Sure enough he had glue ear and following grommets his speech at home improved dramatically. So when offered more speech and language assessment I asked for a delay of a few months to see whether he caught up naturally himself.

Yesterday a letter arrived telling me of a psychology assessment for my ds today. I went and explained that all seemed to be improving with speech and not worried, psycologist said that was fine and that she would take him off the waiting list and report back to the speech and language therapist.

However when I took ds back to playschool I mentioned this to the playschool leader, who then told me that ds was still not speaking at playschool and not playing with anything other than the cars all the time. Ds appears reluctant to do any other play activities and would not talk to the playschool leaders.

So now I have got home I am wondering if I made a mistake by not getting him assessed by the psychologist?

Have I done the wrong thing?

Just think mebadmummy bit stressed with situation I get like this when comes to decisions with kids all emotive.

Psychologist seemed happy to take him off the waiting list after hearing about the glue ear.

The playshool leaders comments have worried poster, left doubt but the leader did not pick up on the glue ear?-mum knows best.

But if it makes you feel better-get assessment.

Thank you all for your comments, I thought I would come back to update you on what I did do finally yesterday. I spoke again to the playschool leader and in order to assertain how bad the situation was I asked her if she thought I should reinstate the assessment. She was pretty vague saying it wouldn't hurt to ring back and ask the psychologist what she thought. So I did.

The psychologist said that since he is catching up with speech and does not have major issues with communicating with people on a one-to-one basis, that she is not duly concerned, but because the playschool have flagged an issue, that I am to get weekly reports from the playschool as to how he settles over the next couple of weeks (he has only been back to playschool for 3 weeks so far). Then I am to ring the psychologist again near the end of October and report how things are going. The psychologist will decided then whether or not to proceed with an assessment, but ds' name will not be taken off the waiting list until then.

Psychologist was very reassuring, saying it could just be that particular situation, maybe ds is a bit shy and does not like the playschool leaders much. She helped me feel much more like it was not something to worry about and that I should trust my instincts that much of the current problems are as a result of the glue ear problems, and that time will see things improve.

That sounds like a really sensible suggestion. I'm glad the psychologist was so helpful and reassuring .

Good way to deal with it, Hope it all sorts itself out.

well done you! The psych sounds absolutely great - how sensible. And how lovely that she came at it from your DS' point of view, as in 'he might not like the leaders much'. I love that she was able to think that way, so many people wouldn't. She sounds a bit of a treasure.

Good luck.

Sounds like a great solution.