SALT observation at nursery today - DS needs to be assessed by ed psych for learning difficulties.

[TotalChaos]

On the upside - she's pleased with the progress he's made with his expressive speech - certainly the length of what he can say is getting to age appropriate, even if his vocab is a bit restricted.

On the downside - she's pretty concerned about his problems with receptive speech (understanding). He's going to be referred to an education psychologist to do cognitive tests to see if he has any other learning difficulties other than language . Which illogically has upset me.

Not sure yet whether he is going to be referred to a paediatrician to check for ASD - despite the fact that he was put on that waiting list nearly 12 months ago, they decided to chuck kids off the list and let the speech therapist department decide if they need to see a paediatrician. SALT is going to discuss with her boss whether he gets the paed referral.

So it's going to be a couple of months at least before more speech therapy, and 4 -5 months till he seeks the education psychologist.

So although the wheels are moving to get him the right assessment and support, I'm still a bit fed up and pissed off at the continued delays.

Anyway to get to the point - what are the cognitive tests that the ed psych does? If DS is found to have ANY learnign difficulties other than language then he can't go to a language unit

My second child is normal ( so far) and it is certainly interesting and different to see a child develop normally and it makes me feel incredibly stupid that I didn't interpret DS1's problems correctly at an earlier stage. But hopefully without sounding too pious, there is still more joy in seeing a child with difficulties develop and learn in his own way. For DS2 it is all just rolling out on a schedule but with DS1, when he does make a small leap with his language, it is so incredible and so joyful because you do not know when or if it will ever happen

TC,tell me the name of your education authority and I'll have a trawl (not sure how many there are for Liverpool).

Thanks Moira, I know what you mean, about the satisfaction with the harder won gains.

Moondog - ed authority will be Liverpool, under Liverpool city council.

Here you go TC. get reading and make contact.You don't have to struggle alone.

thanks Moondog

Just answering TC's first question about what tests an ed psych might do. They may do part or whole of an IQ test. Some of the sub-tests assess verbal skills. These are not all simply tests of expressive or receptive language skills but also may look at verbal reasoning e.g. how are these three words the same "banana, pear, apple". There are also sub-tests that look at non-verbal reasoning. These may involve copying patterns and identifying the next item in a sequence. The exact sub-tests depend on which of the two main IQ tests is used and also and also the age of your child.

Alternatively, your ed psych might use a broader approach. They might do very little formal testing, but through discussion with you and staff, observation and one to one work with your child doing a variety of tests / activities, they will try to establish how your child is performing across a range of different areas e.g. gross and fine motor skills, academic attainment (especially literacy and numeracy), self-help skills and how he picks things up generally if tasks are presented non-verbally etc.

To be honest, as his mum, you probably already have a pretty good of whether his difficulties are primarily verbal or more wide reaching. Do make sure you let the ed psych know your views. She WILL want to know because she already knows that you are the expert on your child and she will probably only have a limited time to spend with him.

Thanks for the info Neolara. As DS is 3.11, I hope they would take a less formal approach to assessing him. I don't think my gut reaction is particularly useful - I feel he is bright,but maybe I am just in denial? And of course kids can be bright and have learning difficulties anyway.

Most EPs I think would probably try to do something a bit more informal as he is so young. She may however do a few sub-tests from an IQ test.

Don't doubt yourself! You're his mum and you really are the expert.

well my dd is in a language unit and has a dx of asd and so do well over 50% of the children in the unit. Admittedly most of them went in with "just" a speech and/or language problem but as they have got older it has become more obvious what the real difficulties are.