My DD is 4 , in Reception with a late July birthday. My question is whether an educational psychologist assessment should be something I try to follow up with, and how difficult that may be to get, and what help I should expect to get out of one if this is the path I should be going down with her. She has been slow to meet all developmental targets (eg, slow to sit, crawl, walk, talk). Her speech is delayed by about 6 months.
My concern is how her speech delay has affected her socially. I saw this start to affect her in nursery, when she became quite aware that she wasnt always understood and she refuses to say anything to anyone she doesnt know for fear that they wont understand her. Ive seen her become frustrated and angry at home, and her teachers have commented she is particularly stubborn. I feel that these are the repercussions of not being able to express herself and her feelings. Since starting Reception Ive had great support from her teachers. She is on Special Action and receives small group help for her fine motor skills, to help her handwriting. I put her problems down to her speech and her teachers agreed that she would benefit from speech therapy. She had an assessment at school last week and after speaking to the speech therapist following her assessment, they again concluded that her speech isnt significantly delayed although her grammar is often incorrect, she has a heavy lisp and she often struggles to find the right word. They did, however, conclude that she has other issues, mainly to do with a weak short term memory and the way she learns (visually) which isnt compatible with learning in a class of 30 children. Also, although she talks and plays with peers one to one, when shes in a big group or in a setting that is unfamiliar to her, she refuses to talk and will make excuses to escape (eg, when a lesson become interactive, shell decide she needs to go to the toilet). She gets frustrated and stubborn and gives up or refuses to try to do something that she doesnt think she can do. I agree with the speech therapists assessment, as I have seen the same behaviour in her myself. The speech therapist suggested she should have an educational psychologist assessment and now Im wondering if I went down the wrong path pushing for the speech therapy, when my concern all along was more about how her slow speech development has affected her socially and emotionally. My question now is how difficult is it to get an educational psychologist assessment if your child is not disruptive in class and doesnt need one to one help? Would there be any benefit to an assessment, and what would the likely outcomes of such an assessment be?