School testing vs full neuropsych

[Anonymous]

What's the difference between what the school and offer for testing, and getting it done privately?

[Anonymous]

$$$$

[Anonymous]

Both include psychoeducational testing but that’s only about half of a neuropsychological evaluation

[Anonymous]

The NP is much more thorough and will have more customized recommendations.

[Anonymous]

NP here - sorry to hijack. Would school testing identify any relevant diagnoses?

[Anonymous]

School testing can surprisingly be really thorough particularly if you get an experienced and competent school psychologists. Add to that it’s free. The other benefit is that they can test the student over time because if they start having attention issues they can send them back to class and get them the next day. Also they will observe them in class.

Now the con is that they are going to downplay issues because they are under pressure not to qualify so many students or if it isn’t that they see students who are really really low so it might be your child isn’t that low so in comparison but you have didn’t do much money on tutoring or other interventions so the are just above academically where they need to qualify.

Outside testing also depends on the skill and expertise of the tester and some parts of the testing they might farm out to an assistant. It can be costly and generally they don’t observe at school. They sometimes have a tendency to over diagnosis and will keep testing until they find a low area. If insurance is paying most insurance will only pay if there is a diagnosis. It can help convince the school there is an issue.

The downside to BOTH of these is that if you are wanting testing you already know there is an issue. It is helpful to ask to speak to the special Ed teacher at the school your child attends. If they can’t even answer basic questions then even if your kid qualifies what is the point if a bad teacher is going to be working with them. Or if your child has dyslexia and they say they generally only push in and don’t have an OG reading program.

We actually took our kid out of special Ed when we realized how awful it was. He kept being placed in an inclusion classroom that didn’t meet his needs. It was half general Ed half special Ed and he got no real help with reading even though on paper he had a great IEP.

The best thing we did was go full throttle on tutoring and buying OG curriculum so we could work with him at home. A friend at the school was going to have her child assessed but there was a long wait for a neuropsych assessment and she heard how bad does services were at school. She spent the money instead on Lindamood bell and her 4th grader who was reading around a first grade level increased like three grade levels in around 12 very very intensive weeks of tutoring. I think it was 4 or 5 hours one on one for those 12 weeks. It was crazy expensive but it worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here - sorry to hijack. Would school testing identify any relevant diagnoses?

School psychs can't diagnose. They can identify behavior/test scores/etc consistent with certain diagnoses and will make recommendations as to whether the student qualifies for an IEP under one of the 13 eligibility classification codes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here - sorry to hijack. Would school testing identify any relevant diagnoses?

School psychs can't diagnose. They can identify behavior/test scores/etc consistent with certain diagnoses and will make recommendations as to whether the student qualifies for an IEP under one of the 13 eligibility classification codes.

If I bring a school report to my psychiatrist or therapist, can they diagnose?

I thought the school could diagnose learning disabilities or ADHD? (I'm pretty sure it's ADHD and wanted to know if there's also a LD or if the attention is what's holding her back).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School testing can surprisingly be really thorough particularly if you get an experienced and competent school psychologists. Add to that it’s free. The other benefit is that they can test the student over time because if they start having attention issues they can send them back to class and get them the next day. Also they will observe them in class.

Now the con is that they are going to downplay issues because they are under pressure not to qualify so many students or if it isn’t that they see students who are really really low so it might be your child isn’t that low so in comparison but you have didn’t do much money on tutoring or other interventions so the are just above academically where they need to qualify.

Outside testing also depends on the skill and expertise of the tester and some parts of the testing they might farm out to an assistant. It can be costly and generally they don’t observe at school. They sometimes have a tendency to over diagnosis and will keep testing until they find a low area. If insurance is paying most insurance will only pay if there is a diagnosis. It can help convince the school there is an issue.

The downside to BOTH of these is that if you are wanting testing you already know there is an issue. It is helpful to ask to speak to the special Ed teacher at the school your child attends. If they can’t even answer basic questions then even if your kid qualifies what is the point if a bad teacher is going to be working with them. Or if your child has dyslexia and they say they generally only push in and don’t have an OG reading program.

We actually took our kid out of special Ed when we realized how awful it was. He kept being placed in an inclusion classroom that didn’t meet his needs. It was half general Ed half special Ed and he got no real help with reading even though on paper he had a great IEP.

The best thing we did was go full throttle on tutoring and buying OG curriculum so we could work with him at home. A friend at the school was going to have her child assessed but there was a long wait for a neuropsych assessment and she heard how bad does services were at school. She spent the money instead on Lindamood bell and her 4th grader who was reading around a first grade level increased like three grade levels in around 12 very very intensive weeks of tutoring. I think it was 4 or 5 hours one on one for those 12 weeks. It was crazy expensive but it worked.

Thank you. By "downplaying the issues" will that be more in the descriptive part or the hard data the tests give? If I have our own psychiatrist or advocate etc look at it, will they should be able to help weed out any bs, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The best thing we did was go full throttle on tutoring and buying OG curriculum so we could work with him at home. A friend at the school was going to have her child assessed but there was a long wait for a neuropsych assessment and she heard how bad does services were at school. She spent the money instead on Lindamood bell and her 4th grader who was reading around a first grade level increased like three grade levels in around 12 very very intensive weeks of tutoring. I think it was 4 or 5 hours one on one for those 12 weeks. It was crazy expensive but it worked.

Wow! We are willing to throw money at this if we need to. Those results are convincing! That's why I just want an accurate diagnosis - I don't want to bark up the wrong tree or treat the wrong thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School testing can surprisingly be really thorough particularly if you get an experienced and competent school psychologists. Add to that it’s free. The other benefit is that they can test the student over time because if they start having attention issues they can send them back to class and get them the next day. Also they will observe them in class.

Now the con is that they are going to downplay issues because they are under pressure not to qualify so many students or if it isn’t that they see students who are really really low so it might be your child isn’t that low so in comparison but you have didn’t do much money on tutoring or other interventions so the are just above academically where they need to qualify.

Outside testing also depends on the skill and expertise of the tester and some parts of the testing they might farm out to an assistant. It can be costly and generally they don’t observe at school. They sometimes have a tendency to over diagnosis and will keep testing until they find a low area. If insurance is paying most insurance will only pay if there is a diagnosis. It can help convince the school there is an issue.

The downside to BOTH of these is that if you are wanting testing you already know there is an issue. It is helpful to ask to speak to the special Ed teacher at the school your child attends. If they can’t even answer basic questions then even if your kid qualifies what is the point if a bad teacher is going to be working with them. Or if your child has dyslexia and they say they generally only push in and don’t have an OG reading program.

We actually took our kid out of special Ed when we realized how awful it was. He kept being placed in an inclusion classroom that didn’t meet his needs. It was half general Ed half special Ed and he got no real help with reading even though on paper he had a great IEP.

The best thing we did was go full throttle on tutoring and buying OG curriculum so we could work with him at home. A friend at the school was going to have her child assessed but there was a long wait for a neuropsych assessment and she heard how bad does services were at school. She spent the money instead on Lindamood bell and her 4th grader who was reading around a first grade level increased like three grade levels in around 12 very very intensive weeks of tutoring. I think it was 4 or 5 hours one on one for those 12 weeks. It was crazy expensive but it worked.

^^lots of great info there! I also firmly believe people spend way too much on testing (and useless therapies). We got testing through the school and through Childrens and they were both basically same results. At the end of the day, neither told me anything that wasn’t already apparent about my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here - sorry to hijack. Would school testing identify any relevant diagnoses?

School psychs can't diagnose. They can identify behavior/test scores/etc consistent with certain diagnoses and will make recommendations as to whether the student qualifies for an IEP under one of the 13 eligibility classification codes.

If I bring a school report to my psychiatrist or therapist, can they diagnose?

I thought the school could diagnose learning disabilities or ADHD? (I'm pretty sure it's ADHD and wanted to know if there's also a LD or if the attention is what's holding her back).

You'd have to ask your psychiatrist and therapist if they would diagnose off someone else's testing and, if so, what information they would need included.

For LDs, a school psych can recommend that the team find the student eligible under specific learning disability, and then the team will go through the LEA's definition of LD. At least in DCPS, what that mostly looks like is comparing WIAT achievement tests to IQ and seeing if there's a discrepancy. You won't get any of the richness of data that you would get from private testing. But maybe you don't need that, if you're going to go forward with remediation anyway.

[Anonymous]

If you want school services, you are going to need the school eval regardless of the neuropsych. Even if the neuropsych recommends school services, it is still the school psych's evaluation that makes the actual determination.

In terms of diagnosis - the terminology is just semantics to some extant. The school will "identify" educational disabilities (the 13 categories of disability) and a private eval will "diagnose" based on the DSM or other medical classification system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want school services, you are going to need the school eval regardless of the neuropsych. Even if the neuropsych recommends school services, it is still the school psych's evaluation that makes the actual determination.

In terms of diagnosis - the terminology is just semantics to some extant. The school will "identify" educational disabilities (the 13 categories of disability) and a private eval will "diagnose" based on the DSM or other medical classification system.

That’s not true - at least not in all cases. My son’s team used solely a neuropsych. Before we had the testing done, I had discussed it with the principal and the special Ed team and we all agreed that a full neuropsych was the best plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want school services, you are going to need the school eval regardless of the neuropsych. Even if the neuropsych recommends school services, it is still the school psych's evaluation that makes the actual determination.

In terms of diagnosis - the terminology is just semantics to some extant. The school will "identify" educational disabilities (the 13 categories of disability) and a private eval will "diagnose" based on the DSM or other medical classification system.

That’s not true - at least not in all cases. My son’s team used solely a neuropsych. Before we had the testing done, I had discussed it with the principal and the special Ed team and we all agreed that a full neuropsych was the best plan.

Schools are required to "consider" outside evaluations, but they may or may not adopt their recommendations.