Goldman Fristoe Wood Cook test

[Guest guest]

Hi group

I homeschool my 7 year old son with Autism. Speeh therapy is be provided

through a Government of Ontario funded community service (CCAC). I have gotten

Speech therapy this way before, but we recently moved to a different city.

In Hamilton they are telling me that if he is non-verbal or his receptive

language skills are too low they will not provide Speech Therapy. They only

provide speech therapy to children who can talk or a least have marginal

receptive skills. CCAC sent a speech therapist ( Shaw from Care Plus) to

assess him using the Goldman Fristoe Wood Cook tests.

The therapist did a test for Articulation and a test for Auditory

Discrimination. Since he is non-verbal the articulation test did not go well.

I thought he would do well with the Auditory Discrimination test. I was told it

was a receptive test where he would be asked to identify one picture from a

group of 4. Since he can ID about 200 objects and pictures I thought this would

be easy for him. My heart sank when I saw their lame, 1950's black & white,

very boring pencil sketch drawings. I knew we were in trouble. We have only

worked with photos, objects, colored PEC's pictures and picture books.

The therapist was a stranger who fired off over 60 questions " show me a ___ "

for over 20 minutes with no reinforecement. They are telling me his receptive

language skills test so low he doesn't qualify for speech therapy. I tried to

reason with her and explain that he has not seen those type of pictures before

and that just because the medium was unfamiliar to him doesn't mean his

receptive skills are poor. He also did not know her, she was not fun, and

wasn't offering any reinforcement so his motivation to do what she asked was

extremely low. I was surprised with how many he did get right and how long he

was willing to put up with her. Under the circumstances I was impressed with

him. He was very compliant with her.

She would not listen and argued back that the test is highly accurate and very

well tested and studied. If a child can't do it it's the child who has the

problem. They use this test all the time and all children can do it....blah,

blah, blah.... I got no where with this very stubburn and narrow minded person.

I'm sure Shaw left our house very pleased with her self that with aid of

her buddies (Goldman Fristoe Wood Cook) she was able to prevent a little

autistic boy from getting speech therapy. A good days work for any Speech

Therapist.

Have any of you had any experience with the Goldman Fristoe Wood Cook test?

Have any of you been successful in choking speech therapy out of CCAC? How did

you do it? I've read the info. provided by the Government, they say they will

provide speech therapy. The Govenrment of Ontario says that Home schooled

children are entitled to the same services that children in Public schools

receive and to contact CCAC to get it, but they won't give it. Now What? I hate

this crud! Like we the parents of children with Autism have nothing to do but

run around to Government offices and make phone calls all day long.

Sorry for this long post. Thanks to everyone who read this far. Thanks to

anybody who has any good ideas. To all the wonderful Speech Therapists out

there, and we have been blessed to meet so many, I do apologise if my message

sounds like I'm down on Speech Therapists - I'm not. If you can offer any help

on how to proceed that would be great.

Rose from Autism Island