Educational Psychologist

[PrettyCandles]

What are they? What do they do? Do they help? Is there any stigma to asking or being refered?

No stigma to asking or bieng refered. They are like gold dust you are honoured if you actually meet one.

They do an assessment of academic potential (IQ) and any specific issues - such as academic or social - through games , activities and a series of short tests. ds' report was very interesting.

So it's purely academic? What about behavioural, happiness, bladder issues - can they help there?

Yes that could be considered too, looking for underlying causes of behavioural and social issues but less so if the cause is physical.

How bad do things have to be to access their services?

LIZS, you say the report was interesting, but was it helpful?

Not necessarily bad at all , although we went private as LEA deny any responsibilty for ds (he's at a private school).

It was helpful to have had the assessment done - the report ruled out a number of niggling potential concerns (dyslexia and a processing disorder for example) and gave us feedback as to his level of self confidence, variances in IQ components, his strengths and weaknesses and what sort of teaching and structure suits him.

As we were paying we perhaps had a bit mroe say in what we needed and its throroughness than a standard LEA one, althgouh ironically the EP we saw works in both sectors.

Prettycandles, if its behavioural, happiness, bladder issues etc you need support with, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist would be more helpful, my ds was referred to one throughhis paediatrician.

Ed psych gave us MASSIVE amounts of help regarding DS2 who has severe autism.
We appointed and paid him ourselves and he helped with behavioural strategies etc. Fabulous help

The reason I thought of Ed Psych is because dd's teacher is begining to get concerned. Though she hasn't mentioned Psych. Also, what dd is telling me about certain aspects of school doesn't match up with what the teacher is observing. I think that her teacher is good, so I'm wondering whether what I'm hearing from dd is (a) true, and perhaps the begining of being bullied, or (b) untrue, and perhaps a cry for attention because something is distressing her.

what does the senco say ? They will be able to suggest whether and ep or paed assessment is appropriate for your dd .

I will report back to this on Monday as my dd has her assessment then. Her school are bloody wonderful when it comes to picking up and helping out with SEN.