Help me choose between two psychologists?

[FarGoneComclusion]

I’m looking for an EP to assess my 15 year old DS2 (16 in July).

I am comparing two quotes and I have offered to travel ourselves to them. The quotes are vastly different in price and I am on a low income so this matters a lot.

Quote one:
Appears to be well regarded, they have been mentioned on threads on MN.

They will assess in school, speak to staff in person and so on. Also includes travel costs plus additional costs for a report.

They will read all previous reports.
Availability just before the close of academic year.

Around £3.2k.

Quote two:
Appears to be well regarded, they have been mentioned on threads on MN.

They have previously worked for multiple LA’s across the country.

We travel to their office with DS for assessment.

They will call DS’s school to request information.

They will read all previous reports.
Availability before the end of the academic year.

Around £860 .

DS does not need cognitive tests and he masks in school so the assessment is unlikely to pick up anything extraordinary in school.

From experience, the cheaper costs do not mean a lesser report. For DS3, we paid £600 for an EP report which won us a Tribunal. On the flip side I’ve seen some £3k reports which did not offer much in the way of provision at all.

Any thoughts?

It is difficult to comment without knowing the names and more about your case. (Don’t feel you have to post!) You are right to say a higher price doesn’t always mean better. Similarly, previously working for multiple LAs doesn’t mean they are better - in some cases it is the opposite. In some cases, a school visit is important for the case even if DC mask. Sometimes it doesn’t matter so much. Personally, I would want cognitive testing.

The double edged sword of working for the LA did cross my mind. Although, DS3 EP also had LA experience and I had a great report.

I don’t want to use all of our funds on the wrong choice. I have PM’d you the names as they’ve been mentioned on MN many times.

It’s so difficult to decide.

Many excellent EPs have LA experience. On its own, don’t let that put you off. Just warning that some people think more LA experience and/or more LAs worked with/for automatically means better and that absolutely isn’t the case. Some with a raft of experience across many LAs are poor.

No idea why the price is so high without cognitive testing? That doesn’t make sense to me. Sometimes testing takes 3-4 hours then analysis and then long report - on top of meeting with parents and school. It’s that part that usually increases costs.

you could ask them each for a break down of number of hours think the assessment will take eg how many with child, parent assessment, with school, going through reports, writing report, feedback etc?

Why no cognitive testing?
my son masks and I was amazed and what they picked up

The first one is well known for being one of the more expensive options.

I suspect the first will also include at least some cognitive testing even if it isn’t a whole battery of tests.

Yes, I agree.

We've just had an EP assessment for my DD (also by someone recommended on here) and the majority of the assessment was cognitive testing.

I was a bit surprised at first that that was his proposal (though I did think it was needed and was very much the missing gap in assessment - we had already had an OT assessment).

However we have just had the draft report and it is amazing how much information can be gleaned from the scores and the discrepancies between the scores, not just in terms of cognition, but also communication and sensory-related. Whilst DD was doing the assessments, he was also obviously picking up on many other things, eg her general demeanor, sensory seeking and interaction.

Oh and he also diagnosed two SpLds (and strongly suggested she would meet the threshold for something else), which I had previously suspected.