Ed Psych. assessment can u help.

[supermum98]

My second son has just been assessed and he seems to have below average short term auditory memory and working memory. Can u tell me the difference between the two and what strategies can we use to help him. The report doesn't make that clear. This was a hour visit at school. Is it worth me going privately to get a full diagnostic Ed Psych. assessment with more detail? The tests seemed quite crude and not that comprehensive.

@supermum98 A week ago I was told DD1 has Well below average Working / Verbal and short term memory, on thursday I was told they had also found a genetic flaw with a brand new test and that Husband and I were being asked to take a blood sample. They do leave you in the dark a little I have found as we have no clue what a whole lot of this means and I myself am worried about future.
School says that they are doing everything they can although they feel music therapy would help but this area has no such thing. Strapped for cash and no idea how to go about things, have been told about this program and that program but scene as husband has just been made redunadent from FT work and buisness is going slow we are lost!
Know the feeling, takes forever and your left stumped, we have got to wait a week and a half till next meeting at school feels like a life time! lol :) We will get there - hope all goes well for you in future x

Wets posts were vitriolic and personally offensive leonie

No need for it at all IMO.

Anyway, I would say to the OP;

By all means go down the route of EP assessment/applying for SA etc - most of us have!!! - BUT you may well find yourself in the position of a lot of us on this board and be back asking for further help/advice in the future.

I know that, for me, (sorry to use this expression!) its been a journey...a frustrating, maddening, hurtful, upsetting and scary journey and I feel, at last, I can see the end in sight. I can sort out ds1's dyslexia, his anxiety, bowel and sleep issues and gross motor skills. Its already happening.

I suppose the "right" strategy for kids with dyslexia as according to wet et al is to provide school interventions and a scribe/voice recognition software so they can get some qualifications and accces the curriculum...but I have a problem with that strategy...will his future potential employers do the same??? No.

I would rather sort out/cure the problem than use coping stratgies that wont always be available

Good luck OP.

This board - at its best - is a real mine of info/experience and great advice.

..oh, and hope you are feeling better now leonie

OP

If your son has seen an EP then he must already be on school action + - have you seen his IEP? You shold have regular review meetings and sign off the IEP each term....

Supermum98 if your ds has been assessed by an EP he should ready be on School Action +, by virtue of involvement of outside professionals.

Statements are based on need rather than sub-test scores, in fact you don't even need a diagnosis to get one. You just need to be able to prove that your ds cannot successfully access the curriculum, overcome barriers to learning and achieve his potential without additional help, over and above what the school is able to provide from its own SEN budget.

Almost every parent on this board has been told their dc 'won't get a statement' at some point, many of us over and over again. A good proportion of us have applied anyway and either been successful or gone on to win via appeals and tribunals.

Has your ds been assessed for a potential diagnosis at all or has he only seen the Ed Psych via school. If its the latter, I would recommend a GP appointment to ask for referral to a Paediatrician. Developmental Paed preferably, but as they are about as common as hen's teeth, it may be the Community Paed - which it was in our case. If ASD is suspected, some areas can bring in the ASD Inclusion or Outreach team as soon as a child is referred for assessment. They can come into school, so some classroom observations and make recommendations on how the school can best support your ds and all this, together with the EP report would help you know what you need to ask for should you apply for Statutory Assessment.

I haven't heard of a Clinical Educational Psych before. At my ds's assessment there was an EP and a Clinical Psych, plus other professionals. We were seen at a dedicated ASD assessment unit, which is supposed to be gold star/best practice in the UK and goes out to train other PCTs.

If you need to know more about the SEN system its worth reading the following links in the first instance:

Schools Learning and Development, SENs

SEN Code of Practice (SENCOP)

Sorry, I'm not sure how much experience/knowledge you have of the system - or what SNs your ds may have, so my advice may well be stuff you already know.

I just wanted you to know there is someone listening who wants to try and help.

Just reading through prior posts, think I am more confused that I was when I came to read lol, Each to their own and WET you obviously feel strongly but in the past I have found Indigo a real support and her advise actually really helped at my last appointment. If it hadn't been for her last post to me I wouldn't have known where to start and really what to expect so no reason to put her down. Might not be able to aford tinsley house but when mentioned I did actually find a link to books and you tube video's from a doctor at tinsley. - Thanks Indigo btw :)

Swimming?? You must be feeling better!!

Wet "Failed to access support"?????? Jesus.

What support is there to access for my son that I havent already tried??? SENco, HT, EP, GP, Paed, HV....please do let me know where I should go next!!!

Oh, and how to find a hcp who doesnt try either;
Blaming the parents (very common - just read some of the SN threads!!)
Invasive tests and proceedures
Medication

All the therapies I (and others) have tried are non invasive, not harmful and dont rely on drugging kids.

Your posts attacked indigo in an unprovoked manner. I am not the only person to say so. You are quite within your rights not to agree with her, but personal attacks are not allowed on this forum.

Oh, and you say you didnt reaD the TH thread??? Then how did you know about indigos sons "blip"???????????????

castiel I am also so very grateful to indigo - and many others on this forum - for their great advice and support and recommendations to try and help my son.

I simply cannot imagine where we would be now if we hadnt done AIT, RRT and now TH - all recommended by people on this board. My son has been failed by EVERY hcp he has seen since he was born.

Its great if you have a good experience with the nhs/traditional route, but to lecture those of us who havent (and indeed who have experienced a standard of care bordering on neglect) and call us "gullible" is despicable.

I hear alarm bells when people dismiss any treatment/therapy outright they
a) havent tried
b) will never try
c) use nn like "apporpriately trained" inferring that no-one else is!!!

Anyway, off to watch the rugby!.....

*You can keep your statements, your EP reports, and your compensating strategies. I am curing all 3 of my kids instead.

You're welcome to choose not to cure your children.*

Bit of a low comment....but then to be honest its an understandable statement seeing as the buns being thrown among virtual friends who are ALL concerned about their childrens futures/welfare have been mighty hard!

Statements/EP reports/SALT, Pead, OT reports ARE important. We need them as one little voice (ours) clearly isnt enough and without them we are considered as paranoid nutters and not a jot of help will be past our childrend ways who are considered uncontrollable, naughty, stubborn children. Without going down a med route we wont get a dx either.

A statement (good one or even half good) in a good school at least gives a child room to breathe and the chance of an education. A pass that gives the child a right to be understood in school and not punished for his/her failings and pushed to the wayside.

At home? no we dont need a statement, we know our children better than anyone. So a good diet, vitamins, minerals suppliments and healthy eating are a good thing wether done through something like TH or a dietician. It has been found that our children lack in certain vits/mins so its not surprise news. I do object to people charging money for this kind of thing though.....and any organisation that preaches "they can cure autism" I wouldnt touch with a bargepole.

Now if they said "can allieviate symptoms" "can reduce stresses and thereby aid concentration and the ability to learn new coping stratagies" would be a different story and could possibly get my attention. Its the word "cure" that aggrivates me and I battle with reading. The way I look at it is my son hasnt just caught a cold, broke a bone that can be fixed.......he was born with autism and no it cant be cured but agree he can be helped and certain traits can be made milder due to management, love and yes vitamins and omega do help :) I am not choosing not to cure my child, I know my child cant be cured which is a hard thing to swallow but I know he can be helped iyswim and in this house we need both statements, reports, dx and vits :)

*devotion to indigo" ?

pmsl

Just off to polish the shrine to her as we speak!!!!

guffaw..............

Becaroooo I don't know all the short cuts or official terms you may call me a 'starter' but I have been on a road going no where since my child was 9 months old. The doctors seemed to listen yet do nothing, eventually when daughter was 4 she got Speech therapist, went to pediatrician who was totally and utterly full of it she didn't care to be honest. We were told there was no way we could go else where. Went through years of hassle with school. Eventually got an ed psyc just around october time last year daughter now 7. The pediatrician would not even speak to the ed psyc and said she didn't 'cross that boundry' so we threw a parental hissy fit to get another pediatrician, we now have a new woman who will speak with ed psyc. Yet still feel we only ever get half a story, when we ask a question it is always someone else who should answer it. Still not to sure if having a 'Well below average' working/verbal/short term memory is considered a disability or what, we have not even been shown the report which will be apparently in a week and a half. Keep looking things up on interenet but then I remember I've not been told anywhere close to half the story. Would be wonderful to get out of this loop of being told nothing and into another loop which seems to actually give advice you can use, like the diet or the music or anything. Seems these people don't like to sure what they have found and go out of their ways to make you feel stumped .. can't answer an outright question. Good to know there is other things out there and Indigo provided that hope. :)

Just to clarify, because there seems to be a lot of confusion on this thread.

Tinsley House absolutely does not claim to cure autism. He is very clear about that in his book.

And the TH therapy is not suitable for children who have had problems since birth. It is only suitable if the child developed normally till 4 months.

There is no suggestion the OPs child has autism. In this thread she asked about memory problems, and in a previous thread she mentioned reading problems. Ie the child appears to have dyslexia, and appears to have similar problems (but not nearly as severe) as my DD had.

castiel I am so sorry you and your dd are having to deal with all this. Its so very traumatic and the attitude of some hcps baffles me tbh....thats when they arent trying to blame the parents as neurotic/mad

I have been trying "to access support" for my son since he was a toddler...I have faced disinterest, I have been laughed at and I have experienced such fear I literally didnt know which way to turn.

IME it all comes down to money in the final analysis...the schools do not have the sen/sn budget to help all the kids that need help. The NHS dont have the budget to help all the kids that need help. Add to that the problem of one medical discipline refusing to talk to/deal with another and you have the ingredients for a multidisciplinary nightmare.

I wish I had all the answers for you. I dont. I only know what I have done, the routes I have gone down and what has helped my son.

The comm dev paed we saw was dire. Truly, truly dire. If I could be bothered I would have reported him....but whats the point???

My son tested at below 3rd centile for spelling and below 12th centile for reading and his auditory memory was poor. School have not implemented any of the (vague) recommendations that the EP made, so he gets no 1-1, no specialist interventions, nothing.

I will freely admit to being AMAZED at the results of the some of the therapies we have done.

For example RRT...he was assessed and was found to have several retained primal reflxes (instead of the postural ones that should have replaced the primal ones at 18 months or so) and after the first appt I looked at my dh and thought "Oh my god, we have just paid £250 for this!!" and all we left with was an exercise that involved spinning ds1 on a chair Fast forward 6 months and some more exercises his RR are gone. All of them. It worked for my son and has helped him immensely.

We also did AIT and that has basically cured his noise sensitivity. He doesnt have it anymore.

Talking about "cures" on the SN boards is contentious - as you may have gathered!!! - but I can only tell you my experiences...ds1 now has no noise sensitivity and has no Retained reflexes. Since doing RRT he has learnt to ride his bike and scooter and is taking swimming lessons...not really possble before.

There is also a bit of a backlash sometimes when you access therapies/treatment that you have to pay for...I dont really understand why.

I really hope you get the help you and your dd need.

indigo Just stay there for a minute whislt I worship you for a bit, would you??

Bec

I don't know the full background to your DS's difficulties - just what you've posted on this thread.

I fully appreciate the frustration in trying to get the right sort of help for a child via the 'established' channels. God knows I was faced with that too.

But each blocker needs to be tackled and not seen as a brick wall.

If a Paed will not dx then you have a legal right to referral to an alternative consultant. I exercised that right.
If the alternative consulatnt is still scratching his head you can ask for a tertiary referral. Many on here have done that.
If you want to bypass the NHS and can afford to do so then go for a private dx. I did that.

If the LA Ed Pysch is crap. Look for a private Ed Pysch. You did that and didn't rate the report you received very highly. However you also stated that the report recommended 1:1 support. You could use that report to support your assertion that your child does need 1:1. You start doing that by applying for a statutoty assessment yourself, describing your child's longterm difficulties and enclosing the private report that supports 1:1. When the LA fails to act you utilise the SENDIST process to force them to recognise your son's difficulties. You use every piece of ammo available to you to force your point of view.

If the SENCO is rubbish and the Head Teacher is in denial then you really need to seriously consider changing schools. If you are going down the SA route then you don't need the support of the SENCO and Head - you counter their views with your private assessments.

I expect that by now you're reading this and thinking - yeah, yeah, simplistic advice, been there done that and don't have the T shirt.

It's easy to get so totally embroiled in the difficulties and frustrations that you don't see the bigger picture. What has been tried in the past and has not worked, might, with a fresh approach and renewed energy, it might just work the second time around.

You shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket via an alternative therapy approach. If alternative therapy works for you that's fine, but you also need to engage with the formal support system, jump through their silly hoops and force them to recognise that your child does have very debiliatating difficulties that the formal SEN support framework must address.

Again, I realise that you can pick as many holes in what I've written as you want to. I don't come on this board to slag people off. I come on this board as the mother of a much older child than most on here to share my experiences and offer my advice. If you knew the particulars of my son's case and the unbelievably bad way in which his difficulties were handled by GP, SALT, Ed Pysch, LA, School Nurse, CAMHS, EOTAS, etc - the same people that you too say were useless, you would think I had written a work of fiction. But I didn't let these people become blockers to getting him support. I worked round them, and with them when I had to.

I admit I was very annoyed to see TH recommended to a first time poster. By all means try alternative therapy but not as a first resort.

If soemone came on a breast cancer thread who had no knowledge of the condition she had been diagnosed with I think you'd be annoyed to see alternative therapies backed up by claims that they will cure her suggested, rather than the traditional chemo, meds, etc. How would she be able to differentiate?

So that's my explanation and that's my response to your question 'What should I do?'.

castiel I would recommend googling TH, AIT and RRT and check them out for yourself and do some research.

There is a lot of stuff out there that can help x

wet thank you for your post.

I will try to answer as best I can.

School would not get him assessed by an EP (well, they would but by the time they did it he would have been moving school...coincidence??)

I got a private EP report done. For me, peronsally, this has been a complete waste of time and money. I appreciate it wont be for everyone and that there are good EPs out there.

I have seen an nhs paed and a private paed. The nhs one...well...I have no words really. I could have requested another paed but tbh by this point was so frustrated/upset by the whole nhs rigmarole that we went private. The private paed was good and would dx asd BUT with the progress ds1 is making atm and will hopefully continue to make we are holding fire on that...we may go back to the paed before ds1 starts middle school and get the dx then. No point at this school tbh.

Why not move schools? Several reasons...ds1 is happy there - which is a big thing for him after his last school. I could HE again but he misses the social side of things. Its a decent school. It just doeant have enough staff/money.

There isnt actually a SENCO atm...she is on long term sick leave so ds1 has not seen her since last spring/summer. Not that I rate her either tbh...when ds1 started at the school she assessed him and reported "no concerns"
Now, I am not trained, am of only average intelligence and even I could see he has got major tracking/convergence issues!!!

He would not get SA. Its almost impossible to get for dyslexia....he would need to be under the 1st centile to get it.

I understand what you are saying and its great that you got what your child needed but I would rather not keep going round on the nhs/trad roundabout when I can access other support that works and wont mean I am continually fighting people who dont want to help me. I would rather deal with people who do want to help and are actually interested in my son and see him as a person rather than as a list of problems, behaviours and sypmtoms.

Does that make sense?

wet You know, I would actually describe myself as a natural cynic!!!

As I said to castiel I have been amazed at some of the results we have had from these therapies. Seriously. So much so that I would not hesitate to recommend any of them to anyone whose dc were suffering as my ds1 was.

If you think that makes me gullible and deluded then so bit it. I can live with that

Thanks moosemamma, I'm staying away from infighting, appreciate all advice.
What happened was that I told the school that I was thinking of getting a private ed. psych. assessment done on my son. Having told me I couldn't have one in school, the offer suddenly appeared. My son is where he should be sats wise, but since year 2 school have been moaning about his output.
As time has gone on I have been starting to wonder about dyslexic traits, despite the fact teacher reported top of class with reading, spellings fine, maths average. Also very interested in reading, so quite academic.
Report picked out very low self-esteem, ie. places himself at bottom of class with SENS kids. Did have a bullying teacher last year who told him he had 'low intelligence', she denied it of course, but I believe him.
Have you any idea, what they should be providing for him in school. They have just talked about raising his self-esteem, that's all really and writing things down in maths. Teacher has been given book on helping kids with working memory problems.

She did 4 of working memory test battery and he was on 25th percentile for short-term auditory memory(work list recall) and 11th percentile for counting recall (counting dots on series of pages and recalling how many) this last tests strikes me as looking at visual memory and the work list as auditory memory although she doesn't make that clear. The other two in the battery ie. digit recall and listening recall he is in the average range. I find this confusing as both come under the heading of short term auditory memory and working memory. There is no explanation of what each specific test actually tests. She did 2 BAS subtests and he was in the 98th percentile for verbal reasoning and verbal knowledge and 34th (av ) for matrices. They conclude he is much better at literacy than numeracy.

I need to speak to ed psych. to get clarity, what do u think I should ask.
There has been no mention of him being on SENS register.
THanks.

Thanks Beca will check those out :)

Know what you mean about that NHS round about and with you there, Always remember the first pediatrician attending a school meeting, she sat there quietly all the way though it and actually embaressed me to no end she just looked ... bored, and annoyed to be there and eventually rolled her eyes when I asked if her and the Ed Psyc could work together to come up with something to help DD remember her lessons. She ended with saying she would not work with Ed Psyc, and that there was nothing else she could do, after a long arguement she told us she could refer us to Genetics if I wanted but there was no point at all we wouldn't get anything from it and it was a waste of time - but well we now know one of these DNA strands is longer than it should be, after a long amount of eye rolling, tuting and sighing - makes you feel like your an idiot, and a time waster, swear they leave you feeling like you are an overprotective mother. Then I come away and notice I understand DD but some of my family ask me to repeat so I'm not I could say I was over dramatising but I see DD as much better at speaking and things than others do so ..... yeah NHS likes to make you feel like a stress pot.