At what age should you do neuropsychology evaluation for your child?

[Anonymous]

At what age would you consider doing neuropsychology evaluation for your child? My son is about to turn five. He has unliteral hearing loss and recently got a hearing aid which is making a big difference. He was diagnosed with SPD when he was three which is common in kids with similar hearing loss. His special ed teacher thinks he has ADHD too. But behavioral therapist and another OT told me they don't think so. He already have an IEP and we have an appointment with dev ped in Sep. I also have the neuropsychology evaluation scheduled at KKI in June. His ped doesn't think its necessary to do it, since medicating him is not an option and he is already reciving therspy and support. I just learned that our insurance will not pay for everything, so I'm wondering if I should follow his ped advice and cancel the evaluation. I can really use the money for thearpy now and wait till he is 7.

[Anonymous]

Where I live, they don't even do them until 7.

[Anonymous]

Also to add the development peditratic didn't see him yet. We will see one at Children's in Sep. I went ahead and scheduled the evaluation in KKI on my own and now wondering if I should wait. Specially since he got the hearing aid only few months ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where I live, they don't even do them until 7.

So our pedetration said to wait till he is 7 since he us too young to be medicated anyway. Do you mind sharing where you live?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where I live, they don't even do them until 7.

So our pedetration said to wait till he is 7 since he us too young to be medicated anyway. Do you mind sharing where you live?

Ontario, Canada

[Anonymous]

We were told 7. See a developmental ped. SPD is not a diagnosis. Its an OT term.

[Anonymous]

If you do one at this age you generally have to repeat at 7. We were told 7.

[Anonymous]

We were also told 7. We live in DC. We did it at age 8 and again at age 15. Based on the i formation we received, if I was only concerned about ADHD, I’d have the Conners old vanderbilt done and wait even longer for a neuropsych. If he’s having issues in school that aren’t explained by ADHD and ameliorated with treatment, then I’d do a neuropsych.

[Anonymous]

I would do the evaluation in 1st grade no later than 2nd. You need another in 8th grade for the SAT's. You might want to do 1 in the middle or not due to $$$. A 4 year old evaluation is considered too old.

The diagnosis does not "really matter" the accommodations are the most important. But, for me I wanted to make sure I did not miss anything. We did miss a lot of things, btw. The 1st evaluation missed anxiety.

Remember. There is no perfect answer. You are a loving and supportive parent doing the best you can. Do what you can and forgive yourself for what you can't do.

Remember this kids learn to read K-2, they read to learn at 3rd grade. So you want enough time before 3rd to intervene if reading is compromised.

[Anonymous]

We did it at 6 and it was very helpful. I don't think we were in a position to wait but, that said, it was too early to catch some language-based learning differences that became more evident as he got older.

[Anonymous]

Why not request psychoeducational testing from your school system? Or did you already get one since you have an IEP? I wouldn't think you would need a ton of information beyond that at this point (developmental/IQ testing, academic readiness/achievement testing, behavior questionnaires and self help skills/adaptive behavior questionnaires).

[Anonymous]

Save the money for therapy, definitely! ADHD symptoms are unclear at 4-5, and especially so due to the hearing loss issues. It makes sense to see how things evolve over the next 2 years and invest your time and money in supports and therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not request psychoeducational testing from your school system? Or did you already get one since you have an IEP? I wouldn't think you would need a ton of information beyond that at this point (developmental/IQ testing, academic readiness/achievement testing, behavior questionnaires and self help skills/adaptive behavior questionnaires).

This. We had a psychoeduational evaluation for DS at 4 which was done by the school at no cost to us. The eval was done over three days and included classroom observations by the psychologist as well as input from DS's teachers so not just a checklist form eval. However, it missed the ADHD - most young children are not diagnosed with ADHD unless it is severe - but did diagnose ASD which was confirmed by ADOS/ADI-R at Children's and our developmental pediatrician. These evaluations got DS and IEP at 4 in preK.

Had a neuropsych eval at 7, which diagnosed ADHD, combined type, and confirmed the ASD.

DS is having another neuropsych eval next month at 10 in preparation for middle school.

Our son also has unilateral hearing loss but mild and does not wear a hearing aid but it appears to have no academic impact. He tests above grade level across the board academically at a dual language school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not request psychoeducational testing from your school system? Or did you already get one since you have an IEP? I wouldn't think you would need a ton of information beyond that at this point (developmental/IQ testing, academic readiness/achievement testing, behavior questionnaires and self help skills/adaptive behavior questionnaires).

This. We had a psychoeduational evaluation for DS at 4 which was done by the school at no cost to us. The eval was done over three days and included classroom observations by the psychologist as well as input from DS's teachers so not just a checklist form eval. However, it missed the ADHD - most young children are not diagnosed with ADHD unless it is severe - but did diagnose ASD which was confirmed by ADOS/ADI-R at Children's and our developmental pediatrician. These evaluations got DS and IEP at 4 in preK.

Had a neuropsych eval at 7, which diagnosed ADHD, combined type, and confirmed the ASD.

DS is having another neuropsych eval next month at 10 in preparation for middle school.

Our son also has unilateral hearing loss but mild and does not wear a hearing aid but it appears to have no academic impact. He tests above grade level across the board academically at a dual language school.

Because most schools don’t do them and don’t even have actual psychologists on staff, and when they do do the tests, they often give very low iq scores or inflated results depending on the desired outcome. This is why people distrust the school doing sensitive and complicated testing. Also, unlike your son, some people have children that do struggle academically and need to figure out the real answer why. Simply giving them it or social skills classes isn’t going to solve their problems. Bottom line, just because it turned out great for your child given his set of issues, it does not work that way far more often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not request psychoeducational testing from your school system? Or did you already get one since you have an IEP? I wouldn't think you would need a ton of information beyond that at this point (developmental/IQ testing, academic readiness/achievement testing, behavior questionnaires and self help skills/adaptive behavior questionnaires).

This. We had a psychoeduational evaluation for DS at 4 which was done by the school at no cost to us. The eval was done over three days and included classroom observations by the psychologist as well as input from DS's teachers so not just a checklist form eval. However, it missed the ADHD - most young children are not diagnosed with ADHD unless it is severe - but did diagnose ASD which was confirmed by ADOS/ADI-R at Children's and our developmental pediatrician. These evaluations got DS and IEP at 4 in preK.

Had a neuropsych eval at 7, which diagnosed ADHD, combined type, and confirmed the ASD.

DS is having another neuropsych eval next month at 10 in preparation for middle school.

Our son also has unilateral hearing loss but mild and does not wear a hearing aid but it appears to have no academic impact. He tests above grade level across the board academically at a dual language school.

Because most schools don’t do them and don’t even have actual psychologists on staff, and when they do do the tests, they often give very low iq scores or inflated results depending on the desired outcome. This is why people distrust the school doing sensitive and complicated testing. Also, unlike your son, some people have children that do struggle academically and need to figure out the real answer why. Simply giving them it or social skills classes isn’t going to solve their problems. Bottom line, just because it turned out great for your child given his set of issues, it does not work that way far more often.

If OP is in DC, her school may. Worth it to ask. The psychoeducational eval is done by an outside contractor for our charter school. It is usually done by a post doc grad student from GW with oversight by a faculty adviser. Our very well known developmental pediatrician thought it was well done and comprehensive and the cost couldn't be beat. From speaking to other parents with kids with IEPs at our school, I have not heard any complaints.