I wondered if anyone on here can advise me about CAT4 scores and best practice in how to use/interpret? My daughter is in year 7, has ASD/ADHD and hypermobility (particularly bad in her right hand, impacting writing). We paid privately for an Educational Psychology assessment when she was about 7, which indicated a 'spiky' profile and also diagnosed dyslexia. Notably she had some non-verbal skills at the 99th percentile, but one working memory result on the 4th percentile. On an open evening prior at high school prior to transition I asked if I should arrange a more up to date assessment. The school reassured me that this was not needed, and they would do all the assessment needed on arrival at high school.
Fast forward nearly a year, and after asking 3 times I have now been given the results of the assessments they have done. It is just the CAT4 scaled scores and the overall scaled score. There appears to be nothing else. I can see from the scores that has more than 40 points difference between the highest scale (non verbal reasoning 138) the lowest verbal reasoning (94).
My question is should school have acted in response to this information? Would the scores be routinely ‘checked’ after completion for unusual profiles? Should the school have completed other assessments to try and work out why there is such a difference, especially given the previous findings about her memory? I also wondered if the overall mean score is still ‘valid’ given the 40+ gap between 2 of the scores.
A bit of context...The transition to high school unsuprisingly has been massively problematic, in part due to Covid, but also because neither primary or high school recognise the complexity of her presentation. Her year pastoral lead initially suggested that she was ‘pulling the wool over our eyes’. She 'masks' in school but tends to let her emotions out at home. She experiences anxiety in relation to multiple aspects of school. For example, having an unfamiliar teacher who has a flat facial expression - she gets really anxious about them being cross with her, even if they are 'nice'. This reduces once she becomes familiar with someone. The triggers for anxiety change frequently. There are issues with school attendance as she struggles with daily transitions and therefore typically 4 out of 5 mornings she doesn’t make it into school for 1st lesson. The learning support lead is now engaged with this particular issue, but I am still not certain her needs to access the curriculum are being supported. There are a number of ‘exemptions’ in place, e.g. she is allowed to leave the room if needs the toilet, she does not get punished if she doesn’t hand home work in. It was a hard fight to get these initially but there has been a shift in this, but there are no specific interventions or differentiation to ensure she accesses learning effectively. Because of her difficulty getting into school each day she missed between 4 and 10 lessons each week. School are unconcerned about this. From our point of observations of remote learning, and based on her self report, she really struggles in some lessons. For example, yesterday (currently self isolating), she had to answer some questions about a text in English. I typed her verbatim responses and would estimate she got 2 out of the 10 correct (many unanswered, some just really off the mark). She was bewildered by some of the questions.
We have a meeting with school on Monday where we are planning for next years transition (e.g. looking at new timetable and rooms etc), but am trying to work out how relevant the CAT scores and the lack of any further assessment is in terms of the next few months. One of the challenges is that I am trying to make sense what they would usually have done but haven't because of Covid (therefore not ideal, but I understand the context) and what they 'should' have done but just haven't because they don't understand/have poor systems/training. I think they are under pressure not to say that Covid is a reason for things not being done, but it all just comes across as really vague.