Anyone's dc seen peter congdon or joan freeman?

[mrsshears]

My dd will be having an assessment and we are looking at it being either of these two.
Does anyone have any experiences with either?and if so what can we expect on the day.
TIA

*I do not wish this to be turned into a debate about assessments,this is what we have decided to do and have thought long and hard about what is right for our dd.

hi madwoman
Maths is an area that needs looking at,a few weeks ago dd was placed with a group needing special help(sorry i dont know the official term)and i was being told that dd was really struggling,this has changed somewhat and i'm now being told she is doing ok but on dd's assesment she scored 2 points off the highest score in arithmetic and age 7yrs 3 months in a mental arithmetic attainment test which does concern me a little.
If i'm completely honest i'm not 100% sure on what we do actually want, just that everything needs to go up a couple of notches iyswim.
I think one thing that would really help dd is if they upped their expectations of her and saw her as a child with high potential,it sounds really silly but i really think dd knows that not much is expected from her and that she isnt viewed as one of the "bright" children.

that's tricky. we've had the usual patting dd2 on the head and 'ah bless' ing because of her disability, but the teachers have always clicked on pretty quickly that any pity is misplaced. (and it's always faintly reassuring to see the look of horror on patronising parents faces when they realise their own little nt bundle is a long way behind)

do you think there is a reason why dd is hiding her light under a bushel, so to speak? is she quite confident, or not?

we did ask in yr 1 about ds1, because school had quite happily announced he was g&t for literacy (and he'd been 'noted' on entry for reading skills etc), when we knew that although he was pretty smart, and could read early and whatnot, that his real innate talent was numbers (he was doing number bonds and multiplication at 3 - and could work out mentally costs and change when playing shops, with real money. we didn't teach him, numbers just seemed to make sense to him). so i just asked them how he was doing at maths, and said really that was his thing. they sort of looked a bit baffled and said 'well, he's doing fine'. i asked if they had ever asked him any maths question he couldn't answer, and they looked a bit nervous. i just said they might want to test him a bit further and see if he needed challenging. a week later he was moved up a year for maths classes as they had actually paid attention to him and made an effort to find out what he couldn't answer, rather than what he could.

it is tricky. the curriculum is so limited that unless it becomes apparent in some way, it won't even be noticed that kids are working above the norm - i dread to think how many kids are essentially going through the motions because there is nothing else on offer, whilst their brains are more than capable of a really good workout.

i wonder why they aren't noticing her though? it is funny how some kids get labelled and others not...

(if it helps, i'm currently considering home ed for ds1. he doesn't really fit with school and is far more motivated in extending the school work off in other directions than actually answering questions 1-4. i'm just not that convinced any more that answering q 1-4 are intrinsically more valuable than building and testing some scientific instrument or other, especially for him)

dd2 has always been happy at school though, whatever they are doing. and she'll just find ways of extending herself, whatever is going on at school.

sorry, that was all a little jumbled - i meant to suggest your dd was a little like my ds1 (although it's my dd2 who tested in the same bracket - we've never had ds1 tested). in that, ds1 just isn't motivated by school at all and is just coasting along in an unmotivated manner, working when something catches his attention. his current teacher has suggested moving him up a grade to try and stimulate him as she knows he is more than capable of passing the grade, if he actually does the work, but at the moment she also thinks that he will fail his current grade because he's just not engaged.

motivation is a big thing with ds1. and the narrowness of the school system doesn't motivate him one teeny tiny bit. even the teacher said it's nothing ds1 can help. he's just wired differently.

(and they've said the same thing for 6 years now.)

DD's class is full of extroverts and lots of the children are very forthcoming and keen to 'prove themselves'.
DD is a complex character and even i have trouble working her out sometimes ,she does sound like your ds tbh,i have often said that dd is an ideal candidate for HE but as i work part time and am 10 weeks pregnant it just isnt visable.
With regard to her hiding her light under a bushel she does this almost with contempt,its like she is thinking why should i have to prove myself to you, i think this is also part of the fact that dd's knows that the teachers dont class her as one of the 'bright' ones.

Hi santac maths is definately not dd's strongest area(although it was the area she scored highest in in the attainment tests bizzarely) however she is certainly better at it than the teachers thinks,dd likes to get things straight away too and can get annoyed if she doesnt.
If its an area which she enjoys she will practice relentlesly until she is really good at it but if not she could well be put off.

Hi mrsshears - at the risk of sounding like Devil's advocate, exactly how reliable are the assessments that are carried out? The cynic in me is thinking if a parent is paying X hundred pounds for it then the person carrying out the tests is not going to tell them their child is average.

Awaiting a barrage of abuse, but hey, it's just a thought.

I wonder how accurate these tests are too, but know nothing about it so it's just a question rather than a comment?

iamnotminterested you would still pay for the test whatever the result,dr congdon is very reputable and highly qualified.

the tests are also used to determine learning disabilities - it's the same test. and most often they are used as a diagnostic tool to highlight areas that require support (for example when parents know their child is having difficulties at school but the school/ lea is not funding support) they are often used by parents as a last resort if their children are being let down at school through inadequate provision for learning or social disability.

there are lots of issues with the tests, but tbh it isn't really possible for an ed psych to fake results, most aspects of the test are timed and unless they ignore the timings and let the kid get extra answers it isn't possible to 'up' the results. links between the actual tests themselves and actual academic progress is a different area tbh.

it's also not unusual for the tests to highlight a spiky ability profile - there is lots of research into whether an 'average' score in one particular area should be seen as a personal learning disability for someone with a vs score across the board, for example.

we tested as dd2 has cerebral palsy. not because we thought she was the next einstein.

"iamnotminterested you would still pay for the test whatever the result,dr congdon is very reputable and highly qualified."

I think they are more asking how reliable are the tests in the first place? That is not a critcism of Dr Congdon he can only use the tests available.

There is also the aspect that MWIA is saying .....
"links between the actual tests themselves and actual academic progress is a different area tbh."
ie what is the link between academic progress and IQ test.

TBH the tests are the most respected available and that is all that can be said.

iamnotminterested did also say "the cynic in me is thinking if a parent is paying x hundreds of pounds for it then the person carrying out the test is not going to tell them their child is average" which ime is questioning the integrity of dr congdon or whoever is carrying out said tests.

I was refering to the "exactly how reliable are the assessments that are carried out?" part sorry.

just to clarify - they are also the exact same tests that ed psychs use in schools when dc's are having difficulties. so it's the tool that your local school will use if they need a cognitive profile of your dc at any point, iamnotminterested. as iggly says, it's all we've got.

but again, test results and academic progress don't always go hand in hand. that's sort of the point, to work out where and why the disconnect. mostly it's an academic exercise

for example, in the case of a child with as, they might score extremely highly on the test, but their academic progress be well below average. for such a child it might be perfectly sensible to contextualise and say that x is unable to cope with the noise/ activitiy levels/ distractions in the classroom and would benefit from 1-1 or small group work in a quiet environment. they might also not be picking up on the subtleties of language in the teacher's instructions. it's nowhere near as simple as saying 'x scored highly on the test so the fact that x isn't academically a star means the test is flawed'.

should the wisc IV be used as an intelligence test? no idea. but it is. everywhere. you just have to contextualise. it's nowt to do with common sense or rl, but it's been deemed an effective tool by educators across the western world. so whether you are paying for it, or not, as long as it's administered correctly (and the instructions are absolutely specific, ther's no leeway) the result can't be tampered with unless you are questioning the testers integrity?

OK then. Fair enough. As you were.

just wouldn't want to think that there were unscrupously dodgy people out there who were wanting to make a fast buck about parent's neurosies.

there undoubtedly are. but i'm not sure ed psychs are the worst of the bunch...

I do think you are right to query things Iamnotinterested.

I think it must be an amazingly complex thing working out average intelligence to standardise to let alone the extremes.Then the manor the test is applied (eg in a group test or one to one, how the introduction by the assessor is dealt with, what they had for breakfast, reassurance given around the test etc).

There are numerous reports questioning reproducibility and demonstrating how IQ test results vary over time and in different circumstances. If an IQ test is meant to be a measure of "innate intelligence" it obviously has flaws (if you assume this is unmoving). The results can not be criticised if carried out to the rules (a respected ed psych would not risk a career on that) but what the results mean and if they reflect "innate intelligence".......?

Look out for Wisc V ...........

Please note I certainly do not think a child scoring so well on a well respected test should be bottom group maths .

There are obviously a lot of confidence and performance issues (sorry do not know how to phrase this better) and there needs to be efforts made to address this.

Yes i think so too iggly
I would love to know the answers,we will get there eventually.

Hi, I took my DS to see Joan Freeman when he was seven (now aged just eleven) and she charged me a fortune, was not very polite to me after I had come a very long way to see her, and then said my DS had a barely above average IQ.
All his school teachers had said he was exceptionally gifted, and I came away thinking maybe they were wrong which coloured the way I thought of him for some little time after that.
Then two and a half years ago I removed him from school (for quite a few varied reasons including no stretching, being intensely bored, being bullied for being different etc) and have been educating him at home.
Now, at just eleven, beginning of Year 6, he is at level 7 in Maths and about to head higher, at a very good level 6 in English and about to head on higher in that too, adores maths, poetry, latin, history, speaks fluent french, is about to start Spanish, reads voraciously (boy type books I have to admit), can answer questions on most tv quizzes including some on university challenge (which I know proves nothing but does show he has an amazing general knowledge at least), and has never looked back. His mental maths is superb, and in fact, most of the maths he does he can do in his head so I have a big struggle to get him to write his workings down on paper. Or to tell me what he is thinking as he does it in his head so I can follow his thought processes.
His older brother had his IQ measured at well over 140 and is currently doing a physics degree. He was assessed when he was diagnosed with Aspergers, and we wondered if little DS had the same. Joan Freeman said he had traits of Aspergers and was mildly ADHD.
Older DS and I have since decided that I have Aspergers too (not diagnosed when I was a child as I am so old) and that other members of my family have it or had it too. This leads me to believe that little DS probably has it too, despite Professor Freeman thinking otherwise. As he gets older it becomes more apparent I think.
I can only conclude that Joan Freeman was very wrong about him. He is not an easy child (yes, he had problems which were the main reason we took him to see her in the first place, not his intellect which his teachers were adamant was very high), is quite unco-operative and emotionally immature, can be very stubborn and very babyish in fact. I suppose this must have led her to assess him so low. (104 was her estimate on his intelligence).
So, as this did, as I said, colour our view of him until we removed him from school and could see for ourselves what he is capable of, I would be very wary of her.
We are at present applying for scholarships for various independent schools for him, even though I am very much enjoying teaching him at home, and I can tell you that if he gets one, I shall be writing to her to tell her how wrong she was.
Fingers crossed please.