Anyone regret getting child a neuropsych. eval.?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

Huh. Like how? I already knew all do these going in with my kid with significant challenges so I honestly found them useless. Like no utility served at all. And we already had an ADHD diagnosis and did all the therapy. I think it completely depends on your kid and the issues. Most parents of kids with issues to the degree of mine have also said they’re pretty redundant.

Same

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

Huh. Like how? I already knew all do these going in with my kid with significant challenges so I honestly found them useless. Like no utility served at all. And we already had an ADHD diagnosis and did all the therapy. I think it completely depends on your kid and the issues. Most parents of kids with issues to the degree of mine have also said they’re pretty redundant.

+1

[Anonymous]

They were like a scarlet A around our child’s neck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They were like a scarlet A around our child’s neck.

That is not even possible. No one knows unless you told them.

[Anonymous]

It was by far the best money I have spent on this whole journey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They were like a scarlet A around our child’s neck.

That is not even possible. No one knows unless you told them.

You have to tell the schools if you want to be truthful when they ask the question in the application. When they didn’t ask, child was accepted. When they did ask, child was rejected.

[Anonymous]

It took a while for us to decide to have an evaluation for DC. Once we did and got a diagnosis, we were able to get him the right support. DC is now doing so much better!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not at all. The one we did for our second kid was, we thought, because we had become rich and frivolous, and could afford to throw money out of the window. Turns out she has mild autism and severe anxiety, and after reading her report, she feels relief at understanding herself so much better. So that was 5K well spent, actually.

The two we did for our oldest, who is now an adult, were absolutely necessary, given his severe ADHD, autism, anxiety and learning disabilities - he desperately needed accommodations in school and still has accommodations in college.

Read that again through the lens of privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They were like a scarlet A around our child’s neck.

That is not even possible. No one knows unless you told them.

You have to tell the schools if you want to be truthful when they ask the question in the application. When they didn’t ask, child was accepted. When they did ask, child was rejected.

Could it be that when you did disclose, the school could read the report and didn't feel the instruction they were offering would meet the child's needs? And that the schools that did accept you did so without knowing that they were not going to be able to serve some of the child's needs?

When I saw my child's neuropsychological report, it became clear to me that he would benefit from dyslexic-style reading instruction even though he was diagnosed with ADHD. The diagnosis of ADHD had caused the school to more closely investigate his reading skills. Only the neuropsychological report made his specific language weaknesses apparent. He was accepted at a school for dyslexic kids, even though his diagnosis was ADHD and not dyslexia, because the report made those language deficits clear, and it was obvious that the dyslexic-style of reading instruction would be helpful. He spent about 2 years at that program, made a lot of progress, and then we pulled him and put him back in public school because he had been accepted at a magnet program.

Yes, in our situation, a diagnosis (ADHD) and sharing that diagnosis caused problems, but it wasn't because we shared, it was because of people's pre-conceived notions about the diagnosis and their refusal to do the assessment to understand co-morbidities. The neuropsychological gave us valuable information to change instruction.

For us it mattered where our child goes to school - what would be a good instructional fit. Today, he is graduating college with honors and considering a very demanding grad school program. Without the neuropsychological, I don't think that would have happened. Instead, he would have continued on the path he was on - downward spiraling self-esteem, thinking he was stupid (because teachers often sent him that message), failing to turn in assignments, starting to cheat (in 3rd grade!), increasingly defiant (because he though he could never succeed), etc.

Even though he was young during that first report, we continued to get them done over the years. The last one was at the end of high school. He was old enough to read it, and he said it described him really well. The objective knowledge of his strength and weaknesses helped him through some rough patches in college.

Thank goodness we didn't think -- we know the diagnosis, we're doing medication and therapy for that, so no need for the psycho-ed assessment!

[Anonymous]

We had two neuropsych evals about 3-4 years apart for our DS, now in high school. I think they were helpful in identifying his challenges but the diagnoses were not as they came to different conclusions (first ASD no ADHD; second no ASD but ADHD). The initial ASD diagnosis threw us for a loop, perhaps unnecessarily so. It may be that our DS is borderline ASD, but the ADHD is clear now and a more prominent aspect of his challenges and it would have helped him academically if that had been identified in the first neuropsych. I'm glad we did them to get more info on our kid but diagnoses seem more like art than science to me.

[Anonymous]

I got both fully covered by insurance but definitely would not have felt they were worthwhile if full pay. It was a little helpful to see what I already knew about his skills and challenges confirmed but I didn’t need a bunch of standardized tests to demonstrate that. And the school testing came out basically identical. For his challenges, assessments by specialists to prepare for actual therapy were much more useful (mainly fine motor).

I know we will need another round of testing for college entrance exam accomodations but I will not be doing the “full neuropsych.” Will get the fine motor retested by an OT (much cheaper if I have to pay out of pocket) and get the autism diagnosis easily reconfirmed by a clinician who works with his current therapist.

[Anonymous]

No, it answered the unanswered questions and gave us all the language needed to get the right supports

[Anonymous]

No. But I will say that once my son’s neuropsych came back with an ASD diagnosis, his private was quick to counsel him out. But the diagnosis helped the district provide the support that he needs, and I’m hopeful that public school is going to be a better fit for him. We did the neuropsych because he was struggling - so I knew we needed to switch schools anyway, but as a parent I needed to understand the full scope of my sons needs to determine the best placement and support for him.

I think if your child is struggling, knowledge is power and a neuropsych will help you better understand your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No! I wish I could do one on my neurotypical kids. Such wonderful insights into what makes them tick, their strengths and weaknesses. So helpful.

Huh. Like how? I already knew all do these going in with my kid with significant challenges so I honestly found them useless. Like no utility served at all. And we already had an ADHD diagnosis and did all the therapy. I think it completely depends on your kid and the issues. Most parents of kids with issues to the degree of mine have also said they’re pretty redundant.

What a lie. My adult and teen kids both have diagnoses and we've been in the special needs sphere for 15+ years. Not a single parent ever said the neuropsych was redundant. In fact, most said they wished they could have done it sooner.

No, actually. The parents of the kids at my child’s school for kids with SN had already done OG, OT, ST and had hundreds of evals by 8, from neurologists and therapists, like most parents with kids with severe SNs. We all thought it was redundant.

[Anonymous]

Yes, we regret it. It was $$$$, thousands. No info. We already knew he had adhd. Useless and impractical recommendations we would not actually turn over to the school. Pages and pages of them that would not actually help our kid and seemed cookie cutter.

DS was angry he has to go through all of that additional testing. We felt it was a money grab for parents to bully the schools into more than their kid needs.