Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Professionals and Ability to ID Best Options

Grinity had posted in a different thread, some advice to another poster about getting further testing:

c) help you get ideas on how to meet this particular individual child's learning needs. (Make sure that the professional you hire is good at this.)

Does anyone have any suggestions about what questions to ask as you identify a professional you might want to work with? I'm not sure what level of advice is realistic to expect from a professional.

I wish we could go to DS's school and ask exactly what they would need in order to provide accomodations, but it's a parochial school, and we've already been told by them that they're not set up (yet) for handling GT kids. So, while we're hopeful that if we can provide the school with numbers they might be open to doing something, we know that may not be an option. We're counting on the numbers to tell us how far he is from the middle, and hoping someone will be able to tell us, "Here's what I would do with DS7 if I were you..." and then give us some suggestions.

Has anyone had counseling in this regard that really worked for them?

Thanks again for any advice. You folks are wonderful.

Our testers (both of them) gave us advice. They said off-the-cuff things to me along the line of "Public school would have a tough time with him" or "Since you're homeschooling, be sure to spend at least 3 times as much time on his strengths as his weaknesses so that he likes school." But we also got formal recs in the form of a report that we could present to a school if we wanted to. This is part of what you're paying for.

So that you know what to expect, here's an excerpt from our report after the WISC:


There were 7 recs, and most were pretty generic for GT kids, like that first one. #4 and #5 were the most highly individualized ones (note the reference to Transformers! Go psych!), so I used them for the examples to share.

A good psych will have an idea of what the school needs to hear to (hopefully!) be persuaded to provide accomodations for a GT child. You might just mention to the psych that this is why you're having the testing done, just to be sure you're getting what you need. But a good tester should know what to write.

BTW, this wasn't really counseling in the usual sense. It was more like discussing test results with your doctor. A brief but informative meeting to explain what s/he saw and what that means to you. Just do be sure to get the written report. That will give you more leverage with the school than "The psychologist said..."

Good luck!

Dottie (or anyone else), any suggestions -- especially for a school with no GT program currently?

Thanks again!

Sure. But at least "a note from the doctor" is more...respectable?...arguable?...I dunno.

I wasn't suggesting that Mama22Gs should request complete individualization. "More individualized" isn't the same as "Completely individualized." Of course I agree that a personally tailored curriculum is unrealistic and, under the circumstances M22Gs describes, is almost certainly completely out of reach. But I don't think that's what the report is requesting.

I do think the report suggests specific, simple solutions that are not hard to implement. "Write down the directions?" That's not hard or terribly time consuming. His K teacher did it, so I know it can be done without undue burden. "Give him graphs and maps?" They work on that in 1st grade anyway. Maybe a teacher would be persuaded to do a bit more of that if she read this report. I don't see that sort of thing as being terribly impractical or providing any undue burdens on the school.

If you do, then I guess I'd suggest that you keep in mind that the psych knew I was homeschooling, so the report was tailored to that end. I wouldn't expect the school to do work with Transformers just for my child, for example. That is too much! But at home, I could. She knew that. I doubt she'd have included that if she thought the report was going to a school.

And, of course, just because the report suggests it doesn't mean that the school has to do it. It's there, but the school can say "No" and the parent can choose to accept that "No." Of course you have to pick your battles.

I guess I'm rather surprised at how negative you sound about this report, Dottie...

Well, of course you have to be reasonable. And I guess I think that compromise is a given in this sort of thing. But I think that if you don't ask, you won't get. If a child needs accomodations--as M22Gs' child seems to--then you have to ask for them. Mama22Gs is asking for how to get professional help to get those accomodations. I think that's a fair question, and I think a psych's report might be useful, at least a little.

She asked:

Of course, we didn't use our report to advocate with a school, so I can't really say if it worked in that regard. But we DID get advice and it WAS specific and helpful to us.

Were we the only ones?

there are people who i think are called educational specialists who take the test results then work with the child a bit then come out with specific ideas and pl mans. Aimee Yermish near Boston comes to mind.

Probably!!!
I just wanted to share my experience. I had DS assessed - our first encounter with any type of testing - specifically required for school applications. We even had a 1:1 post report session for an additional cost. Sadly, we learned nothing new from the post report session that wasn't already outlined in the report. The only 2 extra comments made at the session revolved around the psych claiming that she doesn't see scores like DSs - "very rare." He did well in a particular section/portion of the IQ test. The other verbal comment she made was regarding the assessment in that DS was extremely intuitive and figured out that she was marking things down in 1 column as opposed to another. DS said, I know if I say XYZ, you'll check column A but if I say 123, you'll check the other column. The psych was astonished at his perception and said that had never happened to her before. Anyway, it wasn't worth the extra $ to meet with her to learn just these 2 points. The overall report was generic and brief without too many specifics. It was our first exposure so we didn't learn how brief until we had DD assessed. Both reports, by two different psychologists, were generic with lots of filler such as expose DD to writing by encouraging her to describe steps such as how to make a PB&J. We thought that DDs report was much better than DSs but it turns out they were both generic with... Come on, any psychologist that recommends BOB books in the report when they ran achievements and assessed the child at a greater than 2nd grade reading level should consider revising their generic report! And, these were the psychologists in town with a good reputation... I know the psych met my children only 1 time in both scenarios but surely some more specifics should have been included or digged for...