Can anyone help me to make sence of these acessment scores??

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, I was hoping someone could help me to make sence of these test results for my daughter. She's five and a half and is due to go into year 1 in September. She has SEN's and speech problems. She loves to chat but it's very hard to understand what she's saying. (Even for me sometimes)

Anyway, she was asessed by the EP and these are the results:

Block building- 10th percentile = below average.

Picture similarities- 1st = very low

Verbal comprihension- 24th = below average

Naming vocabulary- 4th = low.

It says that she has a general cognitive ability of 72. (Does this mean IQ ?)

I'm not sure what to make of it. It's a lot lower than I thought it would be. Is there any posibility that she'd catch up in the end? I suppose it's hard to say but these scors were quite depressing.

Mll I have followed yr posts and think you should ask the school direct about iep (individual education plan) and SA+ (school action plus - additional support for those helped by outside agencies eg SALT) as she should surely be on both of these.

In the state system she would be. Please don't let it go at "it's a small class so she should be fine."It has never sounded fine to me. I know you have her very best interests at hear.

What happened to the plan to move her to state school? Was there no place available?

I will ask, but I'm not sure they use the same methods. I have her name down on a couple of waiting lists in case it dosn't work out. She is happy there and dosn't like change, she also needs a quiet environment with few distractions in order to focus and listen. I'm not sure a school with 30 per class is the best thing for her. She also finds it hard to make friends and now has several good friends in her class. It takes people ages to understand her speech and these children have grown up with her since they were two years old. She feels confident to chat to them, but other children who don't understand her tend to either ignore her and sometimes make fun of her which really upsets her. We've worked really hard to increase her confidence and she has come so far, I don't want that to change.

Those are all good reasons to keep her there.

I would still ask about an IEP and SA+ tho.

I know I've picked a a common speech error, but it isn't common not to HEAR the difference. Usually if it's just a speech thing, if you say back to them "What, a yady?" they'll say "NO!!! a yady". So they hear that you have said it wrong, but can't say it themselves. We use pictures of say a pear and a bear. If I say which is the pear, she'll often pick the bear and vice versa.

The school have been fantastic so far. They have put lots of things in place to help her and she's getting 10 mins twice a day of one to one. She has made very good progress with her maths and music and she's getting there with her phonics and writing as well.
If she's happy she'll do as well as she can. If she shuts down to people, she won't learn anything. Teachers don't have magic wands at the end of the day, it has to come from her.

I agree with mmj. That's so true.

Your dd has been tested using something called the British Abilities Scales, which is one of the two commonly used IQ tests used by EPs. (The other is the WISC, as previously mentioned by another poster.)

The EP has used four core sub-tests to give an overall score. These particular tests are usually given to pre-school children but are also given to young kids who are experiencing difficulties. Block building and picture similarities give an indication of non-verbal reasoning and verbal comprehension and picture similarities give a score for verbal skills.

In my opinion, childen's scores on these pre-school tests are not necessarily indicative of future performance. Young children are much more unreliable in testing than older children (e.g. they are much more affected by mood, hunger, bloody mindedness, distractability etc). If tested again, they can sometimes get quite different results. However, this is not always the case.

Kids with language difficulties also often do badly in the non-verbal parts of these tests. Sometimes this suggests they genuinely do have problems with non-verbal reasoning. HOwever, I think think it is very difficult to separate out non-verbal and verbal reasoning through these tests. For example, in the picture similarities test, you daughter will have been shown a row of four pictures then given a card with a fifth picture. She would have had to place the card under the picture with which the card shares a similarity. But to be able to do this well you have to have a good understanding of the world. If your understanding of language is poor and you speech is also delayed, then you will find this task difficult simply because you will not have had the conversations with adults that help you to make sense of the world. Other kids with more typical language development will have done.

The 72 is an overall IQ score, and compares your dd with children of her exact age. The average score would be 50.

I would also suggest that the school should have a very clear plan about how to support your dd. I think some private schools are not keen on IEPs but that does not mean that they cannot have another system which supports your dd.

Neolara - would the average score not be 100?

The average iq score being 100 but in the 50th percentile meaning that 50% of the population have an iq higher and 50% lower . I think the 72 is comparable to the 100?

mummyloves - ten minutes twice a day with a 1-1 is nothing. really.

dd2 has dysarthric speech due to her cp (we were not she would not be verbal originally) and it takes her peers and adults (teachers) a little while to understand her. it's impossible if she's upset.

she also has issues with routines and settling (but we move every two years due to work) but to move to an environment where there is an established procedure for additional needs might really be worth considering.

a good teacher will also be looking at social skills - again, dd2 has needed some help with this, being quite a solitary child.

i would definitely look at the long term suitability of the current arrangement. maybe moving sooner rather than later would be better if she likely to need additional support in the longer term?

neolara - i don't have any experience of the test in question, but your interpretation of the iq score sounds incorrrect?

I taught a child last year with much much lower scores than your daughter in a class of 29 children (her scores were around the 0.01 percentile across the board) and provided for her within the class apart from daily withdrawal for specific speech and language sessions. For the most part she joined in with class phonics and when the work was beyond her she used a workstation with activities to meet her needs.
I would ask how much time each day she will be working with the younger children rather her peers.
I agree with others your love and desire to provide the best you can for your daughter is obvious from your posts

The British Abilities Scale produces a range of measurements

T-Score ? a scaled score between 1 and 100, the average range is between 43 and 56.

Percentile ? the number of children out of 100 that a child would have performed as well as or better than.

Age Equivalent ? the age at which 50% of children will achieve at this level.

Ability Scores ? these are standardised scores. These have an average of 100.

MLL it isn't uncommon for children your daughter's age not to hear sounds in words incorrectly at this age many children have fluctuation hearing loss and struggle to identify individual sounds

Sorry, yes, average score is 100. Have absolutely no idea why I wrote 50. Must be lack of sleep.

These are some of the activities I would use in school for children who struggle to hear/identify speech sounds

Activities to develop auditory discrimination skills:

Listening 1 ? listen to sounds on CD, then ask the pupils to:
* point to a picture of the object making the sound and name it
* point to a real object that makes the sound and then try it out.
Listening 2 ? listen to the sound of real objects with eyes closed. Children guess and name.
Sound bingo ? listening to sounds on tape and covering the correct picture.
Sound walk ? pupils drawing pictures or writing down the names of the sounds they hear on the walk.
Grouping sounds ? animals, musical instruments, vehicles, etc.
Odd one out ? ask the pupils to identify the sound that is not part of a group of sounds, eg. dogs barking, pig grunting, cow mooing, musical instrument playing.
Musical discrimination ? discriminating between loud/quiet, high/low, fast/slow notes. This should be part of a music lesson ? ask a TA to observe.
Clapping or tapping rhythms ? you can use pupils' names and polysyllable words. This activity can be linked with picture-noun recognition. Pupils can work in pairs, using picture-noun cards ? take turns to clap syllable beats and choose the picture-noun card to match the number of beats.
Same/different 1 ? ask the pupils to listen to sets of two everyday sounds and identify those that are the same and those that are different.
Same/different 2 ? ask the pupils to listen to sets of two words and identify those that are the same and those that are different, eg. bat/bat, bat/bet.
Same/different 3 ? ask the pupils to listen to sets of two words and identify those that rhyme and those that don't, eg. cat/mat, bed/bud.
Hands up 1 ? ask the pupils to put up their hands when they hear a particular sound (sounds given one at a time).
Hands up 2 ? ask the pupils to put up their hands when they hear a particular sound against a background of other sounds (figure/ground auditory discrimination).
Who is it? ? choose a pupil to be blindfolded, then ask another pupil to say a short sentence. Ask the blindfolded pupil to identify the other pupil by name,
Sound bingo ? discriminating between initial sounds.
Rhyme time ? ask the pupils to listen to a word. If it rhymes with the word that they have in their hand then they can keep it. The winner is the first person to collect five rhyming words.

and
Activities to develop verbal comprehension skills

Following directions 1 ? in the classroom (eg. 'Come and sit on the carpet'. 'Line up by the door').
Simon says ? using body movements (eg. 'Stand on one leg', 'Raise one arm').
Following directions 2 ? during PE, games and other physical activities.
Following instructions 1 ? using possessives (eg. 'Put the book on my table').
Following instructions 2 ? using adjectives (eg. 'Pick up the red ball).
Following instructions 3 ? using the language of time (eg. 'you can go out to play after you have put the toys away').
Listen and colour ? eg. 'Colour the big fish red and the little fish green.'
Yes or no ? true or false statements (eg. 'A pig can fly. A fish can swim.')
Sense or nonsense 1 ? ask pupils to listen and identify the sentence that makes sense.
Match sentences to the correct pictures 1 ? using high frequency verbs (eg. 'The girl is jumping').
Match sentences to the correct pictures 2 ? using prepositions (eg. 'The cat is in the box').
Match sentenecs to the correct pictures 3 ? using high frequency nouns (eg. Mum is in the garden).
Sense or nonsense 2 ? read, write and draw only those sentences that make sense.
What am I? ? listen and identify the item from a specific category (eg. animal, fruit, object) from oral sentence clues.
What next? ? oral story prediction.
Everyday questions ? adult to model asking questions related to familiar events and experiences (eg. 'What did you do at the seaside?' 'Who went to the seaside with you?). Pupils then ask questions of each other related to familiar events and experiences.
Following instructions 4 ? follow a simple instruction sequence for a classroom activity using both pictorial and written clues.
Time sequence ? draw a flow chart of the main events in a story.
Who am I? ? ask the children to guess the person after listening to sentence clues (eg. story characters, occupations).
Where am I? ? ask the pupils to choose a location on a picture map after listening to sentence clues (using prepositions, left and right).
Cause and effect ? ask the pupils to complete a sentence orally (eg. 'The tree fell down because...', 'The cat ran up into the tree because...').
Why? Because ? story character motivation activities.

Activities to develop visual discrimination skills:

Sorting ? colour, shape, size and texture.
Post-a-shape ? matching shapes to the correct opening.
Matching silhouettes 1 ? pictorial.
Matching silhouettes 2 ? shapes.
Pairs 1 ? matching objects, shapes and pictures.
Odd one out 1 ? colour, shape, size.
Odd one out 2 ? pictorial (apple, orange, banana, cup).
Pairs 2 ? matching letters, using a choice of only four to six at first. try to avoid the letters that are easily confused like b, d and p. Introduce those letters gradually.
Pairs 3 ? matching numerals, using a choice of only four or five at first.
Matching sequences ? colour, shape and size.
Spot the difference ? searching for visual similarities and differences between two pictures.
Mix and match ? making three-part flip-books where heads, bodies and tails of animals can be interchanged.
Match the detail ? matching a picture of a detail (such as a window) to the picture from which the detail comes 9such as the house that has that window).