Reply to Does FCPS test for Dyslexia/Dysgraphia?

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Reply to "Does FCPS test for Dyslexia/Dysgraphia?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]School psychologist here! It’s really a semantics question. We are not giving diagnoses in the educational setting, we are giving educational classifications. If I test your child and the pattern is clearly  dyslexia, I will tell you that! But there won’t be a piece of medical paperwork for your child’s record that says that. Instead, there will be an IEP under the category of specific learning disability. I would not encourage you to get private testing at this stage, as the school will give many of the same tests for free.[/quote]

How many hours of testing do you spend with a child when you conduct a school-based evaluation?  Case loads are very high and time is extremely limited.  [/quote]

I probably spend 2-3 hours with each child and then observe them.. There’s also an educational assessment that is another 2-3 hours. Private testing might be 4-8 hours, they typically give several tests that measure the same construct, whereas I’ll probably only give 1-2 unless there’s an unanswered question about the child’s performance.  Private testing can definitely be more thorough, but I find that testing that takes place in a child’s ecological system is often more accurate to their day to day. I’m also not sure that giving additional tests provides much added utility. I am not saying people shouldn’t get private testing, but if it’s a financial burden for you and not covered by insurance, school based testing can often do the trick of understanding what your child needs. [/quote]

I worked in several school districts as a school psych. and did not have the ability to spend 3 hours with a student for testing.  My caseload was through the roof.  I was often interrupted for mental health, behavior, and safety/risk assessment emergencies.  Plus, the number of meetings I was required to attend limited my time spent for student testing.   Unsure which school system you work that allows you to spend several hours with one student.  I was lucky to have 2 uninterrupted hours.  [/quote]

I work in FCPS, which is the district that the poster is asking about. Our caseloads are high but manageable. There are certain busy periods of the year (April-June) where I start having to work a lot from home. It helps that at my school, our administration considers psychological testing important and will pull me from that only for true emergencies. I certainly can't say that all school psychologists have a good situation like that, but I should think that as a school psych yourself, you would be offended to hear people say that we falsify testing when that's just not true. [/quote]

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