Daughter 35 percentile on memory Processing index

[tangledweb]

Had a cognitive assessment done and her strongest strength is 58 percentile long term memory and her weakest is 9 percentile short term memory with little auditory memory. It all averages out at 35 percentile.

I have no idea what this actually means - anyone have any idea? I'm meeting with the head tomorrow to discuss it.

She's 5 years old and has been in speech therapy twice a week for six months.

Not sure if the following is helpful, but at 58th percentile it means if you take 100 children of the same age, 57 would be worse at the same test and 42 would be better. So slightly above average :).

9th centile means 8 children worse and 91 better, so not great :(.

Not sure if averaging the two is unduly helpful as they are different types of memory.

So with poor short term memory, thinking in a school situation, she might struggle to remember what instruction she has just been given, or struggle to remember how all the steps to do a maths sum when she has just been taught how to do it.

But as her long term memory isn't too bad, once she has learnt how to do something she should be able to remember how to do it in the future.

Also, if she has very poor auditory memory, then maybe the teacher could give her written instructions to follow when he/she is explaining things to the class.

'Average' is 25 - 75%. So anything above 25 is nothing to worry about at all.

9% is fairly low - but nobody gets worried till you get down to about 1 or 2%

What do you mean by 'little auditory memory' - do you mean worse than 9%? Or worse than 1%

With a bad short term memory she's going to struggle to remember what to do, so needs to only receive one instruction at a time (which is what they'd do anyway for a 5 year old)

You can practice auditory memory. School can easily do an intervention for that - or you can at home. Games like 'I went to the shop and I bought an apple', then the next person says 'I went to the shop and bought an apple and a bannana' etc (with each person remembering what the last person said and adding to it.)

Short term memory can be practised with games like a tray of things which you get a minute to memorise, then one is taken away and you have to remember which one....

Anyway, if 9% is her weakest, then it's not too bad.

tangledweb

You may find these research paper collections provide some useful information.
Auditory Memory
Working Memory (also known as short term memory)
CiteULike Group: Human Memory Systems - library 157 articles which has research papers regarding both working and long term memory systems.

Having a poor auditory memory is one of the factors which are part of having an Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) which can be assessed and diagnosed from about 6 years of age.

Being on the 9 centile for short term processing is significant - 91 children out of a hundred score higher . It will affect her access to the curriculum. If she had this and other indicators it can suggest dyslexia or other specific learning difficulties. I would get a full assessment for her - verbal reasoning, non verbal reasoning especially as she is having speech and language help

Thank you so much all. Your responses are more than i hoped as no-one in Real Life seems to really know anything. We got the report back the day after parent's evening when the teacher was trying to reassure my that my DD was normal and was perfectly fine (hmm why does she do word stencils while the others have a spelling test then and have 2 hours of speech therapy then?).

The extra reading and suggested games are great and the idea of further testing.

I'm truly grateful.

Does this now make her an SN child? She is really struggling at school in that she hates going, hides shoes and such like to avoid it. Drop off is a nightmare, with howling and hanging onto legs which gets me so upset as i don't want the other children to judge her for it. When she's happy she is absolutely fine, and popular in a generic way. No close friends at school but is central to running games etc at play time and lots of children wave and shout good by when we leave. She just hasn't bonded especially within the group of girls in her class and i heard one girl call her 'babyish' on a relatively successful playdate.

I am worried.

TW,

She is still your lovely DD regardless but she needs you now more than ever!!!. You as her mother has also now as a result become her best - and ONLY - advocate here. You are truly best placed to fight her corner for her - this is because no-one else actually will.

If she is already being seen by the SALT surely she should already be known to the SENCO at school and is on something like School Action Plus. If that has not happened I'd be asking why at this meeting with the Head. You need to see the SENCO too asap. Is there an IEP (Individual Education Plan) already in place for your DD?.

I would ask your GP to refer your DD to a developmental paediatrician; how her class teacher can utter such guff is appalling but that does happen quite a lot. You need to bear in mind also that the wide spectrum of SN is not covered in any great detail at teacher training college so these people speak guff often out of sheer ignorance (that is not to excuse her class teacher though). Do not ignore your underlying instincts here; your DD needs further assessment.

SN means special needs. SEN means special educational needs, ie she needs some kind of extra help at school. Any kind of extra help.

If she is the only one in the class not doing spellings, then she has SEN. She should be on the SEN register and should be receiving extra help as and when she needs it.

I'm not sure who she has seen, or who tested her memeory, or what else was tested.

It would be good for her to see a paed. Ask your doctor to refer her.

It would be good for her to see an educational psychologist. Ask school to refer her.

But even if she can't see these professionals because school and the doctor refuse, or there's a year waiting list or whatever - school still have to teach her. They have to give her appropriate work, they hav to work out how she learns best, and they have to teach her.

So you need to be in constant dialogue with her teacher and the SENCO about what progress she is making, and what more you or school can do to accelerate her progress.

Met with the Head and SENCO today. She's on 15 minutes a day with the SENCO doing extra literacy and art therapy. I live overseas, so although in a British system, there isn't much choice or access to other facilities. She was assessed by an Edu Psych but there are no developmental paed's here. There isn't even a generic paed that i especially trust. I think we need to come home for some further testing but can't do that until next term.

At least there is an plan for the moment and we'll see how we go for the rest of term.

Thank you so much for your time and input.

out of interest, is the speech therapy for pronunciation issues, or for the content of her language? if she finds conversation a bit difficult that may be partly why she's so keen on running games in the playground. Might be worth asking if the school does any social skills groups if you feel she needs support with that.

ThepumpkinofDoom her speech therapy is for language ontect and a phenomic disorder. It's precisely why she's so keen on running games as she's not verbally dextrous, to say the least.

A social skills group is something else to look into. Thank you.