When you say to pursue "private testing" in addition to the school's testing.....

[Anonymous]

What does that mean? A dev ped? A full neuropsych eval? Are those things different? If I asked the school to do "testing," should I also try the county for early intervention services? Or, now that he's in K, the county's services are provided through the school?

I don't want to wait for KKI or Childrens, so any recs on where should I go? We live in MoCo. What should I expect to pay out of pocket (ballpark) so I can add to my pretax health account for next year?

I am just at the beginning of this, so thanks!

(Issues are focus, personal space of others, some social stuff. My gut says he's just immature, but enough people have suggested this that we're going to try it and see what the experts say.)

[Anonymous]

He is young for a neuropsych. At that age, I would look for a developmental pediatrician.

[Anonymous]

That's a pretty big area.

Schools vary and it has been some years since I was a SN parent. However:

Decisions about what testing is to be done by the school are supposed to be made by the team, which includes you. Schools typically have specific tests they rely on, you can ask for additional evaluations assuming the school is qualified to perform them. But you also bring in assessments and reports from your own outside providers. You can ask the school to pay for an independent evaluation, the details of which would be figured out when you make the request. The independent evals I asked for were 1) pt-ot eval related to dysgraphia (unfortunately the person doing the eval had zero knowledge of tourette's, which was the underlying reason for writing problems); 2) learning disabilities eval; 3) neuropsych eval when I was not satisfied by the learning disabilities eval (among which was administered a Woodcock Johnson, which showed him as average but was in fact a marked decrease from the WJ 3 years previous). These requests were made over the period of a year and a half, not all at once. Later, without asking for the school to help, I had my son evaluated at a hospital-affiliated child development center that specialized in very comprehensive education eval of students with all kinds of disability. The neuropsych and the comprehensive eval provided a wealth of information.

But it all depends. I have heard of problems were the school refused to provide an independent eval and the parent's insurance refused to pay for an eval that was being conducted for educational purposes. It depends on the child's individual needs. It is also an evolving process. You may start with some basic assessments, write a plan based on them, and over time realize that more assessment is needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does that mean? A dev ped? A full neuropsych eval? Are those things different? If I asked the school to do "testing," should I also try the county for early intervention services? Or, now that he's in K, the county's services are provided through the school?

I don't want to wait for KKI or Childrens, so any recs on where should I go? We live in MoCo. What should I expect to pay out of pocket (ballpark) so I can add to my pretax health account for next year?

"private testing" could be any of the above. developmental pediatricians can run simple tests for developmental delays involving block, verbal responses to questions. they can also diagnose ADHD and some other conditions based on a parent checklist (some want the teacher's too.) a full neuropsych usually involves a full day or two of testing and the tests will be customized to what you said in your intake or longer parent interview. this usually includes some kind of cognitive ability test and achievement tests. they may recommend additional "educational" testing for reading or writing usually if they suspect an LD.

early intervention is for kids before they are school age so your child is too old. the services would now be provided by the elementary school system.

$3000 or more for private pay. it depends on the tests involved and how much they bill for the write up. It can go up to $5000. stixrud, mindwell.

[Anonymous]

No LD suspected. His working above grade level in all subjects, so he's 2e if he's anything. LD could show up once he finds the work difficult, but we don't see any signs at this point.

Thanks so much! I think we'll start with a dev ped at this point and go from there.

[Anonymous]

Should expect to pay around 3k for neuropsych.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He is young for a neuropsych. At that age, I would look for a developmental pediatrician.

This, if no one is identifying a specific concern, you don't do full testing and start with a developmental ped.