Psycho-educational Assessment

Today, I took Theo to Watchdog Central for a psycho-educational assessment so I may apply him into learning support at schools that offers learning support. We met with Judy Chow Fairhall a clinical psychologist. I spoke to her about Theo as she asked me questions about him.

Speech delay has always been a problem. But after her assessment, she feels that he is dyslexic in the phonetic aspect of language and not able to mimic sounds which would lead to poor reading skills. And also the fact that he is not well verse with his alphabets and numbers that would cause for even more concern at his age level. She addressed that his expressive language and skills are between age 3 and 4.

A year behind may not be a big deal to me because a child can catch up at different rate. But if he really has dyslexia then I can see those symptom surfacing because of him not interested in writing which would led to the disinterest in reading because everything is just too hard with letters, words and writing in general.

Theo does need a lot of visual cue to help him along with verbal direction repeated at least 3 times. If more than 2 steps direction is given then it is hard for him to decide which to do first. It is usually best to tell him to do one thing first and have him complete the task then add on to the directions. He also tends to be unsure by asking back if what he just did is correct or just asking for an approval that what he did is done correctly.

I do not know if any of this could be over done by a psychologist. Because one thing leads to the other. His fidgeting fingers could be ADD or SPD or because of his speech delay. Any disorder can cross over. But at the end Theo needs help in the language area.