School testing vs full neuropsych
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| The ChildFind testing for my daughter was pretty good. They at least flagged all the issues, even if they didn’t fully know what to make of some of them. Her first grade school testing was complete bunk. Basically said she’s completely fine, nothing to see here. Private neuropsych diagnosed with a litany of things that all seem accurate and have been helpful. |
Anonymous
|
School testing only assesses your child’s ability to access the curriculum, won’t provide a diagnosis, only provides services based on how many standard deviations your child’s ranges fall from average, and your school district will likely only give you bare minimum services based on the evaluation results.
A neuropsych is going to be much more thorough and is going to go beyond just accessing the school curriculum. It’s essentially an unbiased third party evaluation. They will give you diagnoses, along with a detailed report of your child’s learning and cognitive profile, strengths and weaknesses, and recommendations for school settings, accommodations and any other next steps (psychiatrist, OT, social skills group, etc.) |
Anonymous
| Let me assure that after thirty years as a special education teacher, I have never had anyone on the evaluation team purposely downplay issues or be concerned that we didn’t want to find a child eligible for services. I am sure there are bad actors out there, but don’t assume it’s all of us. The tests we give are all given under strict guidelines and there is very little wiggle room for interpretation. The scores are straightforward. Start with the school, and then go private if you feel you need more. The school is free and much faster than private. |
Anonymous
The bold is not quite right, at least not the way I've seen if work in MCPS. In MCPS, the school psychologist can (but doesn't have to) accept the outside neuropsych and decline to do their own evaluation. In that case the school psychologist reads and summarizes the report on an MCPS form and signs it and shares it with the IEP team (Parents have a right to access this school psychologist form - it is an "educational record" under FERPA.) The IEP team still "gathers data" in the form of teacher reports and any state or local testing. But, that is not the same as the psychologist's assessment. In our situation, when we presented a neuropsych report done by a PhD psychologist from a well known practice with all possible testing (IQ testing, achievement testing, checklists for like BRIEF and Connors, and computerized attention testing), there was basically no tests of her own that she could run. Anything that she did would be undermined by the fact that the school psychologist only had a Masters and our psychologist had a PhD. The school psychologist would have had to put in a lit of time to do as or more comprehensive an assessment, so it was easier just to accept testing. OTOH, we have had IEP teams decline to accept a solo test we presented done by a speech and language pathologist because SLP's by law in MD are deemed not to be qualified to assess reading. |
Anonymous
| I think using an outside psych expert is the way to go - especially if your insurance covers it. I feel better knowing the evaluation isn't biased by the school system, and you will usually get a report with recommendations for appropriate placement and services that schools may not be inclined to suggest. |
Anonymous
I've never had a teacher downplay issues. It was the administrators. I've always appreciated the difficult spot many teachers find themselves in, wanting to advocate for the student but mindful of the power levels. It can be a touch balance. IME, there's never been an issue with the results of private vs school testing. It was what should be done to address the educational needs of my kids - the recommendations. That's where our battles have been. |
Anonymous
| ^^PP here. I forgot to add that with one kid, I couldn't get the school to even evaluate him even though I provided several private assessments documenting deficits/disabilities. I was told by the school pyschologist that "nothing about your child stands out". I was stunned but, in hindshight, should not have been. I am now what FCPS has created. |
Anonymous
| Chiming in that most kids don't need an actual neuropsych. It's very detailed and can offer a differential diagnosis and help determine how much of a child's challenge is based on ADHD, anxiety, speech/language, etc. (I've really generalized here). For the most part, a regular psycho-educational assessment is sufficient. But, if you DO need to delve deeper, a neuropsych is the way to go. I don't believe most school districts in this area can do neuropsychs because they are proscribed from using the broad range of evaluations/assessments/subtests the private sector has available. The school district usually specifies which tests their staff can administer and which ones they cannot. |
Anonymous
Seconding this! You can get a private psychological or psychoeducational eval that is just as (if not more) helpful than a neuropsych. People on this sub often don't seem to understand what a neuropsych eval is, which is "to assess the extent of impairment to a particular skill and to attempt to determine the area of the brain which may have been damaged following brain injury or neurological illness" (according to wikipedia - just to get a quick description). For my kid with ADHD, it is not helpful to know that ADHD is related to frontal lobe dysfunction - which is the crux of neuropsych. For most kids this is true. Understanding the functioning of specific brain areas rarely translates to useful information. |
Anonymous
12:42 here. Your view of what a neuropsych evaluation is is outdated. Even your source for a definition (Wikipedia) notes that your view that a neuropsych is for assesing the impact of injury/illness, is a 'traditional' view, and that it is now used to assess behavior and cognition outside of injury/illness. Two of my kids have had multiple neuropsychs and while particular brain areas may have been mentioned, it wasn't the focus except in those areas where it was critical for us to know what was going on. Younger DS has a language/communication disorder and we needed to know if the issue was related to the processing of sound, processing of language or a combination. This was not caused by injury/illness. This could not have been done by a psychoeducational evaluation. The neuropsych also better identified how much of our DSs learning disabilities were a result of attention deficits, language deficits, anxiety, behavior, etc. and the interactions of these. Because the neuropsychologists had many more assessments/subtests available to them and because they have greater education and experience than most school psychologist, a psychoeducational evaluation wouldn't have helped. Finally, a neuropsych evaluation delves much deeper than a psychoeducational evaluation. When there are deficits, neuropsych should always be more informative and helpful than a psychoeducational evaluation. The question is if that level of information is really needed and can you afford it. My kids have also had multiple psychoeducational evaluations. For one kid, by upper ES, a psychoeducational evaluation was sufficient. My DS with the language/communication challenges absolutely needed every single one. |
Anonymous
What MD law are you referring to? I an SLP in MD and I specialize in dyslexia assessment and treatment. I am not familiar with any barriers to my doing so. According to the creators of the assessments used to evaluate reading, SLPs are qualified examiners. |