What does an educational psychologist do?

[elliejjtiny]

Apart from when they are part of the ehcp assessment? My son is in year 7, he has autism and emotional development delay and he is in mainstream secondary with an ehcp.

School are having a meeting with an ed psych and they are going to talk to her about a possible referral for support for ds. But I'm not really sure what it will involve as i only have experience of an ed psych being part of the ehcp assessment.

They assess as part of the EHCP assessment, as you said.
They can attend annual reviews and advise on placements.

I doubt they do this now, but when I was a SENCo, I had termly meetings with our EP, where we would discuss pupils who were on the SEND register and not making the progress we hoped for. She would sometimes observe in class and write a report with recommendations and strategies, which would be given to subject teachers. She would attend multi disciplinary meetings, meet with parents and offer training to staff.

Thank you. Do you know what they would be able to do to support my ds? His review isn't until May and he is really enjoying school (apart from PE) and i thought he was doing really well. He is in top set for maths which is the only subject they are streamed in at the moment.

It would depend, I imagine, on what the school feels he needs additional support for.

The ehcp assessment can be quite cursory- did he have a full cognitive assessment with e.g. processing speeds? DD had one of these (tribunal ordered) and it was quite enlightening around why she was struggling with particular things.

They should be able to recommend support strategies.

In its purest form the job of an ed psych is to look at your child’s psychological profile in so far as it pertains to their educational abilities and challenges. And then they are qualified to suggest adaptations or adjustments that would help your child overcome their challenges.

Eg: they might look at processing speed and see if it’s slow and that’s a barrier, they might suggest adaptations involving visual reminders.

Or if your child is very demand avoidant they might suggest an encouragement based system.

of course not all ed psychs are equal. Some are great, some are rubbish. When applying for my son ehcp the local authority ed psych was amazing and wrote a 12 page essay on my child’s strengths and challenges and loads of ideas to help. Separately i commissioned his own a few years later and the output was a few pages of copy paste and no value at all. Luck of the draw.

well they’d look at his challenges and suggest adaptations to help overcome them. That’s sort of what an EHCP is - a bunch of adjustments your kid needs for their SEN.

i’d say not all autistic kids need adjustments just because they are autistic. Some are fine. If your son is happy and doing as well as you think he’s capable of you maybe don’t need the ehcp?

As well as assessments during EHCNAs, EPs can be involved in ARs (this includes early reviews). The content of EHCPs is based on evidence, EP evidence can help inform proposed amendments. This can lead to further understanding DS’s SEN and the SEP he requires. Even if an early review isn’t held, the information can still be used during the next AR and the school can still have regard to the EP’s recommendations in the meantime.

Doing well does not mean the legal threshold for the LA lawfully proposing to cease to maintain is met. Judging by OP’s other posts, the EHCP definitely should not be ceased.

Thank you. When i say he is doing really well, it's all relative. He is supervised at all times and has the emotional development of a 3 year old. But he is in top set for maths, enjoying school and has friends which is really good.