evaluation for 10yo?

January 2, 2011

Anyone have any advice for getting a 10yo evaluated for problems with expressive

language? For background, ds2 was nonverbal past 3yo, despite ST starting

around 18mo (his older brother was a late talker, too, so I knew what was going

on with ds2 when he wasn't babbling early on). Despite intervention, ds2 never

completely caught up to " normal " (ds1 did). Ds2 reversed pronouns and scrambled

sentences even into early elementary. He is now in 5th grade. We had him

evaluated by a psych, just a brief office visit where the doc talked to him a

bit and did a brief test of short-term working memory. Doc said ds2 had some

difficulty with working memory, which was consistent with an old WISC; but also

that it was obvious that ds2 was struggling to get his thoughts out. Which is

true. Even now, ds2 will scramble words in trying to get out sentences, and the

doc was concerned that that is increasing anxiety in the classroom when he feels

pressured to answer but has trouble doing so. Doc suggested an eval with a ST

at the Children's Hospital.

Does anyone know how well this would work for a 10yo? A school ST evaluated him

several years ago, more for articulation (which was delayed) but still, it was

disappointed that she didn't pick up such obvious signs of delayed expressive

language in her testing (and this was back when he was still reversing pronouns,

even). I'm a bit gun-shy of more testing if it's not going to pick it up. BUT

we're going to be moving at the end of the school-year, so he has a chance for a

fresh start and I want to get problems identified and start addressing them

before we move.

Thanks for thoughts!

January 3, 2011

Hi, ,

This is not exactly the answer to your questions, but it is something we are

doing in a similar situation. My 2nd son was a late talker, right around 3, and

I now have a nonverbal 5 yo dd. For my older son, he had speech therapy for a

year when he was 3, and he did catch up. What I am doing with him now (at 13

years old) is something called The Listening Program. It is music therapy,

monitored through an occupational therapist. (My daughter's Speech Therapist is

also licensed so I am beginning to use it with her, too.) It has been doing

wonders for straightening out his cognitive processing, along with the work with

the OT. He, too, suffered from anxiety and in school work.

A recent success was that the day after Christmas, he was required to do

something that he didn't fully understand, and he was stressed. It required

writing something. I was amazed that even under stress, this time his

handwriting was legible. Before, on any days where he had any anxiety, his

handwriting would shrink and would lose all spacing.

The OT just started working with another program called Listening Ears and is

having amazing results with that, too. That one is a more comprehensive program,

with The Listening Program as only one component. It involves auditory feedback.

There may be others on this list who have worked with it. We have not tried it

because we are already doing The Listening Program.

I know there are a lot of speech therapists on the list, so I would be

interested to know if they have had a different experience with these programs.

Buckwalter

>

> Anyone have any advice for getting a 10yo evaluated for problems with

expressive language? For background, ds2 was nonverbal past 3yo, despite ST

starting around 18mo (his older brother was a late talker, too, so I knew what

was going on with ds2 when he wasn't babbling early on). Despite intervention,

ds2 never completely caught up to " normal " (ds1 did). Ds2 reversed pronouns and

scrambled sentences even into early elementary. He is now in 5th grade. We had

him evaluated by a psych, just a brief office visit where the doc talked to him

a bit and did a brief test of short-term working memory. Doc said ds2 had some

difficulty with working memory, which was consistent with an old WISC; but also

that it was obvious that ds2 was struggling to get his thoughts out. Which is

true. Even now, ds2 will scramble words in trying to get out sentences, and the

doc was concerned that that is increasing anxiety in the classroom when he feels

pressured to answer but has trouble doing so. Doc suggested an eval with a ST

at the Children's Hospital.

>

> Does anyone know how well this would work for a 10yo? A school ST evaluated

him several years ago, more for articulation (which was delayed) but still, it

was disappointed that she didn't pick up such obvious signs of delayed

expressive language in her testing (and this was back when he was still

reversing pronouns, even). I'm a bit gun-shy of more testing if it's not going

to pick it up. BUT we're going to be moving at the end of the school-year, so

he has a chance for a fresh start and I want to get problems identified and

start addressing them before we move.

>

> Thanks for thoughts!

>

January 3, 2011

Sometimes the standardized used do not specifically evaluate the child's

area(s) of weakness. You could review your child's file to see which assessments

were used, and then check to see which areas those assessments target. If you

are transferring to a new school, you might ask that the new therapist do a

language sample and analyze it for language errors (semantic, syntactical and

word finding problems). A language sample is not standardized, but it can give

you very specific information.

From: sbuckwalter@...

Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2011 09:34:52 +0000

Subject: [ ] Re: evaluation for 10yo?