Help, my daughter is not trying her best in her acessments.

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, my 4.5 year old daughter is having acessments at a development centre. She has quite a severe speech disorder but a huge vocab and is always talking. She has a problem with constipation and often soils herself although she is dry day and night.
I was supprised to hear after her session last week that the speech therapist has scored her understanding of language as being quite low. I was really as she can understand everything I say. She follows instructions a remembers things very well.
I'm sure she must be playing up for them. It's a shame I wasn't there to see how she behaved and if she did know the answers.
She tends to play up for people if they are not strict with her. She basically will try to get away with whatever she can. Her nursery know this and are quite strict with her but in a very kind way. I think she has respect for her teacher.
Anyway, I don't want her to be labeled as anything she's not just because she's not trying her best. I want it to be an accurate diognosis so that we can help her in the most positive way. What should I do ?

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Hi. At the very least the speech therapist should be including what you say in her report. This is expected practice when the assessment results differ from a parents recognition of their child.

You need an opportunity to discuss the results in detail with the speech therapist (you should be getting detailed feedback and information on whats in a report before its sent to anyone else). Explain your experience, get detailed info from her and what you say should be included along the lines of "Her mother reports that...."

The results of any assessment, but especially with a child, have to be presented along with detailed description of any factors which could have had a bearing on the results, and a discusssion of how such factors would have affected the results. A tendency to play up and possibly having to go through an assessment without a known adult there? would be examples of such factors.

im not sure if this is reassurance or not for you, but there are some of the tests which deliberately test how willing she is to co-operate with people who are unknown to her - rather than how well she 'scores' on the tests.

one example may be 'how many stacks of 5 or more bricks can she stack?' is not a test of dexterity - its a test of willingness to co-operate to do as she is asked on a trivial task in the first place.

I not since long sat in on few of ds salt tests and the language they use is very formal ds got marked down as he could not point to a claw or a talon but then i think most nt kids at 4 would struggle to .They also do not promt with non visul clues either.

ds understanding is 2.9 2/ almost 3 key word level but home it sems more and think its down to the lanugae and non verbal gestures automatically use at home

Hi, I naively thought that dd ASD did not have any SAL problems at all, and was toatally shocked when her pead reffered her to SALT as she has great vocabulary and does not stop talking even to draw a breath. It was not until her SAL assessment that i discovered that the reason that my daughter talked so much was her way of hiding that fact that she did not understand most of what was being said to her, and she had discovered tactics for covering it up ie non stop chatting. I was actually very proud that she had that much intellegence to fool us, as she has severe learning diff also . My dd could follow simple instructions and stuff but when it comes to explaining stuff to her, or her trying to tell us things that have happened to her, well she does not have the understanding, somthing that we were very unaware of.

It may be she can understand you better , because you are more tuned to her ways of communciating and have expectations in line with her abilities. She may be different with those who see her on a professional basis and who have a wider experience of what other children her age may, or may not, be able to do and will be testing how far she meets or even exceeds these. Be wary of interepreting the odd comment out of context. The findings are scored in relative terms as well as absolute ie. her understanding may still be a relative strength compared to her expressive speech but be slightly lower than for her chronolgical age group. Both your and their interpretations of her development are valid, you should certainly have input into the conclusions (have you been asked to complete questionnaires and invited for discussion as par tof the referral process?), as it helps builds up a whole picture to have different points of view.

Has your daughter been observed at home and at nursery? These are things I would be expecting to happen if there is a possiblity of a diagnosis being given, and would be asking for if it hadn't yet happened.

FWIW I had massively over-estimated my DS1's level of understanding and I still struggle to truly know where it is now.

Mothers are very good at working out what their children are saying and communicating. It is much harder for a stranger to understand a small child. It is easier for a small child to understand what their mother is saying than a stranger. Lucy is used to your body language, facial expressions and your expectations. I seriously doult that she was playing the therapist up. Its just a tougher test communicating with a stranger.

I found it hurtful when I was told that my son's speech was delayed. I took it really personally and cried when I read the report. How dare anyone say that my son was less than perfect. Surely the rest of the world should acknowledge that the sun shines from his backside.

However that report meant that my son was bumped up the waiting list for his grommets. If the theraphist had written what I wanted to hear then my son would not have got the help he needed.

agree with mumof3monkeys and notfromaroundhere - kids with receptive language problems can be amazingly good at blagging it - working out what's required from visual clues/usual routine/gestures etc. I would take the SALT's comment seriously. Are you absolutely sure that it's "strictness" that benefits your DD rather than clear 1-1 instructions? IME it can only benefit your DD if school realises that DD isnt understanding everything, as it's important for people to realise the difference between naughtiness and needing a simpler explanation.

Thanks everyone, good point about her being more used to me etc. Her school give her clear simple instructions and she follows them very well. She sometimes tries to act like a baby and this is when they have to be strict and not give in to it.
It's hard to know what's normal for her age, as I don't know many children of the same age. But the ones I know and have seen in her class all seem to be more advanced. For this reason, I try not to compare.