Educational Psychologist/Moosemama?

[Tiggles]

Didn't want to hijack Moosemama's thread, but it is mentioned on there about her DS being tested by an EP and found to have high level scores in some areas of WISC? but problems with processing speed. (Apologies if remembering that wrong).
Can I ask is it just an EP that carries out this test? And how do you go about getting the EP to carry it out? I think that DS has areas of strength and areas of weakness that the school maybe don't know about as he is seen as generally intelligent, but they have admitted recently that he is underachieving (for his potential, not against NC levels). The school are looking at putting social things into place for him, but I am hoping with their latest academic comments that maybe I can get some academic help too.
Sorry, this is waffly as I don't really know exactly what I am asking about, but maybe someone can enlighten me a bit!
Thanks

we had a privatre ed psych assessment done. often they school ep won't carry out a full assessment for children who are generally doing ok unless there is a really good reason.

we paid about £650 for a full assessment a couple of years ago.

lor. sp and grammar all over the shop! sorry!

ds had wisc assessment carried out by clinical psych at CAMHS.

The thing about tests for thing like processing speed is they often don't really help school to help him.

Conventional wisdom says processing speed can't be improved. Certainly school can't improve it. So having a report that says he's slow, which is obvious to everyone anyway, doesn't normally help you much.

Actually, it's often not at all obvious to schools that children have slow processing problems. A child can come across as very bright and failing to reach their potential and it's put down to laziness or reluctance. I think it would be very useful for the school to know there is a reason beyond personality traits for children not achieving. Even with my experience with my own DS I have to remind myself often that the DS I support is not being deliberately awkward when he doesn't follow an instruction, etc. He appears to be quite able in a lot of respects, and it can be very irritating, and easy to forget he's not doing it on purpose!

The DC I support, he's not my DS!

I don't think slow processing is at all obvious in most schools either, especially when there is clearly a high score in areas like reasoning. DS is clearly bright to anyone who meets him and he was able to compensate quite a bit for his slow processing, but it was putting a lot of stress on him and set up a high level of expectation for things that he was weak on, like following instructions as mentioned above. Our private EP report was invaluable in getting him help in the areas he needed and explaining why he seemed to be slow and forgetful.

I don't know if it's true that processing speed can't be improved. But DS has been taught lots of strategies to help him with it from a dyslexia specialist and his overall performance has improved dramatically.

What kind of strategies does he use?

"Conventional wisdom says processing speed can't be improved. Certainly school can't improve it" I don't agree with this - would love to see a bit more evidence when people state things as though they are fact.

A processing speed score on the WISC involves completing a simple task as fast as possible so that the tester can see how quickly a child responds. The standardised score gives a snapshot of the child at that point in time and taken on its own is not very helpful... it's the WHY and SO WHAT that need answering - and that's the real skill of the EP.

Obviously practice will help improve performance (whatever the skill) but there are also other factors such as confidence, familiarity with the adult, environment, stimulus that affect performance.

An EP can be useful in looking at all of the factors affecting a childs performance in school and advising on how to structure the environment, learning experiences etc. to help the child do better.

In the first instance discuss your concerns with the school SENCO. Some EP services are happy for parents to ring them directly for a chat about concerns - check out the LA website, there will be a number on there to ring the EP service ... I'm sure they won't mind

ladygogo I'm only claiming that school can't improve processing speed because both of the EPs who assessed DD said so. Plus all of my personal research over the last few years has never found anything you can do to improve it.

By processing speed I mean how fast you think. I can't work out how you would practice thinking...... But even if you can practice it, for example recall of times tables, I don't think you can speed it up. I certainly was not able to speed up DDs recall of words or times tables by practising..... Not one iota. We were against a physical limit with her.

Eventually I did manage to improve her processing speed through auditory integration training - which is something that school can't do.

Getting a free referral to an EP is a no brainer. But paying for a private EP is a much harder decision.......

My ds was tested by the EP at school, but only after they had already been working with him for a couple months on a weekly basis.

It was done because he was clearly very intelligent, but failing to achieve and also to help inform his assessment process. His results were complex and unexpected, so they had to do an indepth analysis, rather than just the standard/basic analysis.

In the end it highlighted processing speed and visual motor co-ordination as potential problems and these have since been borne out in other ways, through observations, assessing specific tasks, an OT assessment and a trip to the opticians.

In our case, the school has had the reports recommending extra time be allowed for processing, particularly in tests and exams, since January, but have failed to act on it.

Basically his verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning results backed up the general feeling that he was cognitively highly capable, yet underperforming against his own potential. It helped us to identify possible problem areas that might be holding him back (ie the slow processing and visual motor issues) which we were then able to look into in greater detail.

We have been trying to get his visual problems assessed since then, but have struggled to find a window of time between other appointments and assessments. All we currently know is that he has better than 20/20 vision, but poor convergence and binocular vision, struggles with tracking from left to right and his visual motor co-ordination is poor. In addition, it has recently come to light that he's also bothered by some sensory stuff relating to his sight. I'm hoping we can get it all sorted before he goes into the next academic year.

As others have said though, the WISC IV has to be carried out by an experienced EP and with an open mind, as its really only a snapshot of how the child is performing on the day the test is carried out and under those particular conditions.

For us it was definitely worth doing, but only in addition to the observations and experience of the team that was working with him at the time, iyswim. I think if we had just had the test done on its own, the results wouldn't have been as meaningful.

Moosemama, I'd chase up the school specifically on the point of requesting extra time in assessments. Some schools simply don't know it can be done. I had to inform my DS's school that he was entitled to extra time in his Y6 SATs. The school I work in is much more proactive and a number of children on SA+ get 25% extra time, as well as any with statements. Your poor DS has just completed all his voluntary SATs, by the sound of it. It's all too believable that he didn't get extra time, try to make sure its for the last time.

Thanks Ellen. Do they do mini sat assessments every year then? Ds2 is doing his year 2 SATs this week and next week and he's loving it! Mind you ds1 loved those SATs as well - even made me buy numeracy practise papers to do for fun during the summer holidays!

The EP actually told us outright that he would be officially allowed extra time in all tests and exams from then on, purely on the basis of her report. I bet the school hasn't even read it. She also repeated it in her final, end of involvement report, so there's absolutely no excuse. I blame myself though, I never thought about chasing them to make sure it was happening, as it was raised at the team meeting where the EPs handed over to ASD inclusion, so everyone knew.

Thanks all :)
Got a meeting with the SENCO next week so hopefully will be a productive meeting. It's the first time I have officially approached the school since his formal dx although spoken regularly 'informally' to his teacher, and the SEN teacher. Turns out he had his ADHD assessment in school the other day, guess they had a cancellation as school didn't get much notice.

Bloody hell, moose, does sound like they didn't read it, or even if someone did they didn't pass the information on.

My school (where I work) and my DS's school do SATs every year from Y2. They are specifically for that year group and they usually mark them internally. My school pays to have the literacy ones marked externally. They are taken in the classroom but under exam conditions. That's how they assess for end of year NC levels. They are optional as far as I know but seem to be used in lots of the local schools. The advantage is that the DC are used to doing the assessments and they are standardised across schools. The disadvantages? Too many to list!

My DS only got extra time this year for his 'official' SATs because I had found out through my job that he was entitled to extra time. But in my school 4 DC on SA+ also got extra time this year in their Y5 SATs.

Sorry, LittleMissGreen for the thread hijack.