Let the Journey Begin!!!
Have you ever wondered what is involved in a psycho-educational assessment? Wondered what happens for you as the parent or guardian? What does your child do during the assessments? How does this help you in the journey for answers? How do you prepare your child for this journey and what's to come? Well follow along with me as I begin the journey with our middle child. Today I started down the road of learning his strengths, needs and how best he learns.
We are just at the starting line!
Am I nervous.... HELL YES! This is not a road you take lightly or without your eyes open. It's an overwhelming, scary and emotional place to be. I don't know what will come at the end but I know that the answers we get will put my son a path to success that I can't do alone. He is a bright, energetic and funny kid who struggles at school. The goal over the next month will be to gain a deeper understanding of the things he does well and is strong in, and then to look at the things that are harder. From there we make a plan and support him where he's at to move forward.
Over the next month I'll try (because life can sometimes get busy) to post with each assessment date to give a run down of what's happened. I'll try if I can to include a bit his own thoughts an feelings if he's willing to share. Follow along with me. Ask me questions. I hope by sharing this I can help others understand how amazing this process can be!
How does this process start?
For us, this process started with my finding a psychologist who could assess our son in both French and English. Not an easy task when living in Toronto in a city that is does not always provide French and English equally. Our children all go to a French Language school and so some of the assessment tools (those assessing academics) need to be done in French.
What happens at the first appointment?
So today was my first session with our psychologist. Lucky for me this same doctor also did the assessment of our eldest child so we already have a good working relationship and that made today's meeting easy. Also having been down this road before it was slightly less scary. I do however vividly remember our first meeting three years ago....
I was nervous, scared and felt like I had little control over what was happening. My husband was able to come to the first meeting which helped us both understand the process the steps and the implication of what we were doing. Thankfully for us we have a great doctor who clearly explained what would happen, the steps needed and things we'd require to make the process go more smoothly.
The first appointment is a meet and greet with the doctor (at least in our case, other doctors might work differently). I sat with her in her office for an hour today and we talked about everything from when I was pregnant with him until today. She asked about his behaviour at school, his social skills and what he is interested in.
I provided her with any assessment documents we already had. At this point that included he's Individual Education Plan, first term report card from this school year, as well as speech and language assessments which the school board had done previously. I also have to dig up (and I mean dig up because I am not as organized as I'd thought) his occupational therapy reports, his speech assessments which we did when he was 3 (how did I not know then that I'd need them now LOL). All of these documents will help support the work moving forward.
What happens at appointment #2?
The next time we see her, in about a month, our son will be the one in the 'hot seat'. The assessment will really begin then. Over the course of two two hour visits the following four parts will be assessed to gain a better understanding of how he learns:
1. Cognitive Ability and Memory Skills
2. Executive Functioning
3. Adaptive Functioning
4. Academic Skills
I have no idea in what order these items will be assessed but they will all be done in the course of the next two sessions.
Knowledge is Power!
So follow along with me over the next month. I'll try my best to keep everyone up to date on how it's going. Am I nervous this time? YUP. Do I hope he's going to show he's not as low as I fear? You bet. Am I excited to get moving in a more positive direction for my kid? Absolutely. Only good can come from this!