Information needed about cognitive stuff...

[TooTicky]

Took ds2 (aged 4)for a developmental check with hv. He had low scores for speech and language (which I knew he would) and also for cognitive ability. I'm not really sure what this means (although I did do psychology A level!) and would like to read up about it, but don't know where to start. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

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"Cognitive" usually refers to "thinking skills". This means things like problem solving and seeing patterns between things, both verbally and non-verbally. Depending on the context and who is doing the assessing, it could also include things like how good children are at self-help skills such as dressing and feeding themselves. What did she do at the developmental check? Do you think she did anything to test non-verbal thinking skills? e.g. matching shapes, she builds a shape with building blocks and your son copies etc. To be honest, it's quite difficult to reliably identify very young children's non-verbal skills if they have difficulty with speech and language because they may just not have understood what they have been asked to do. Sorry, this is rambling a bit but if you let me know what the HV did, I could probably have a better stab at interpreting her conclusions.

Surely she must have given you some guidance about what to do or who to see? I would think Child Development Centre for a more full and professional assessment.

We are being referred to a paediatrician. Hv had ds2 doing various tasks, including identifying objects, building blocks, copying block buildings, answering questions about pictures, drawing (this is definitely something he doesn't do), and physical skills which were fine. He dopes have a clever mind and thinks laterally to solve problems, although I know that there are certain concepts he does not understand. Hard to name them, but I know when they arise. My psychology teacher left out the cognitive part, as she said it was boringbut of course now I wish we'd done it!

Does anybody else know anything useful?

yes he does.

It's a vague term (just finished year one psychology component of mixed degree) but I would think they mean all the Piaget stuff- he was a cognitive scientist, and he set lots of tests for kids toa chieve: object permanence, problem solving that sort of thing. Cognitive Psychology is the notion of the brain as an information processor, but I would start with Piaget, Vygotsky and go from there- work your way up. I habve an as level revision book that covers it I would be more than happy to send as a starter (no longer needed)- just email me on peachesandcream04 at btinternet dot com, I'll pop in post.

hello

you could try looking for a book on child development/child developmental psychology aimed at health professionals...look in waterstones....(i think Bee & Boyd are surnames of good accessible authors...if you ar egoogling...'Goswami' Childrens Cognitive Development however covers everything in alot of tedious detail)

this will give you the relevant info on cognition ,what order cog skills usually develop in etc in a larger more applied context....the broad general books give you a bit of an introduction really.

i wish i could think of one i knew was really good..but i cant at the moment... im sorry thats not much help is it!

I've got a spare portage developmental booklet if you'd like that sent to you
I got it from Thomcat - my dd now has her won from portage
its really good at stages and areas of development
I'll be back on later to check if you want it
or mail me [email protected]

Thank you everybody. I can't wait to get reading. I so much don't want to sound ill-informed when we see the paediatrician. I'm sure they think parents are stupid anyway.

It looks like your HV did a range of tests that tried to look at how good your DS was at verbal (identifying objects) and non-verbal thinking (e.g. copying building blocks). She might have assumed that he has low scores for "cognitive ability" because he didn't do well on the non-verbal thinking tests. But as I said earlier, these are not necessarily reliable if the child has speech and language difficulties because they don't necessaily know what they have been asked to do. This is particularly true if the child has more difficulty with understanding language than with using it. Testing young children can also be unreliable because of very variable attention spans and difficulty in focusing on tasks that adults choose. It does sound as if the tests were quite basic and when you go to your paediatrician they might do more thorough assessment. I would say though that as a parent, you know your child better than a HV who presumably only saw him for a short period of time. If you have a feeling that he is bright but handicapped by his language difficulties, then you are probably right. Don't get too worked up by the jargon. "Cognitive" really just means "thinking". If a child has "cognitive difficulties" they may also be described as having "learning difficulties". I guess your paediatrician will want to identify whether these difficulties are general i.e. they cover verbal and non-verbal thinking, or whether they are specific language based difficulties.

Thanks neolara, I feel a little better now, although despite the fact that he is definitely bright there is a sort of intangible "something" that he struggles with, I think.