Worried after Speech and Language Assessment

Roselm wrote: »

The therapist is working off your child's answers on a standardised assessment.That means when it was being developed the test was used on hundreds of children at each age group to find out the average range of scores expected at that age range. This means the test is very robust (but not infallible).
Your son answered significantly fewer questions correctly than expected.
Now the test can be affected by anything that affects the child's performance like the child's attention eg very distractible or lethargic, if they are tired, sick, very shy.
Also occasionally a child can answer very weakly on one section and this pulls the average score down. This specific area of difficulty may not be very obvious in real life if he can draw on skills in other areas to compensate.
As regards homework etc.there is a difference between auditory comprehension and the skills you use when learning letters, writing, blending. Remember if he does have a receptive language disorder but keeping up in other areas it is most likely a specific difficulty rather than a general learning disability.
Did the school tell you specifically what made them query this in the first place?

Thanks for your very detailed reply. If it is anything at all, it must be very specific. I noticed at the assessment he was quite impulsive with some answers without thinking them through. I've also noticed at home with the homework that he can get distracted and I have to re-engage him.
For your information, the following is what the teacher highlighted:
After a lot of thought I think it's more a question of Wont due to lack of interest as opposed to CANT e.g. Hand to eye co-ordination in sports is excellent and using scissors to cut out pictures of footballers is good.


Gross and fine motor skills and hand eye co-ordination:
{Name} is having difficulty with fine and gross motor skills and hand eye co-ordination skills. He has difficulty copying movements, balancing, skipping, hopping and running. {Name} sometimes has difficulty standing up straight for periods of time for example during P.E. lesson. {Name} struggles to copy movements when performing a dance routine, and will slouch his body forwards. {Name} also finds it difficult to copy actions during math’s counting warm up games. He has difficulty lining up and walking in a straight line, with the class in and out of yard. He can be slow to complete written work due to difficulty gripping pencil and forming letters. He has difficulty with using scissors and can be slow to complete cutting and sticking activities.

Understanding of instructions;
{Name} has difficulty following instructions and remembering them. {Name} sometimes needs instructions modelled and explained slowly and repeated, especially if it is two or three step instructions for example first cut the words, then stick them onto the card and then colour the pictures. However he works really well when you are monitoring him closely and with adult support, for example the SNA in our class sometimes sits with {Name} to help him complete his written work


Concentration skills;
{Name} finds it difficult to focus on tasks during independent work. {Name} sometimes doesn’t get tasks completed due to lack of concentration. For example finishing a pattern on a pegboard. When copying the class news from a sheet in front of him, He often skips words and loses his place in the sentence.

juneg wrote: »

I would suggest you get an OT occupational therapy referral as well for some of those items. Ask your teacher /GP /Speech therapist for further information.

The more information you can gather at this time the better equipped to deal with anything you will be.

Getting any news we dont expect about our children is a shock to the system and that will take time to process. Be kind to yourself ,

Thanks for the reply Juneg. This is actually a long running saga. Last year my Sons Junior Infants teacher put together a list of 10 observations. However HSE Officer did not see anything that jumped out as a disability. I've been objective about this from the start, taking the view, that we should follow the process through, and see where the land lies after. My wife was a bit more dismissive saying that it was rubbish.
I spent hours on end, during the summer, on the phone to the HSE. His stance was there was nothing to investigate and that he was baffled. I was determined that the process had to be followed through to completion. We agreed his new Senior Infants teacher would monitor him for a few months. She then revised the report (shown above). The HSE officer was then satisfied that precautionary OT and SLT assessments would be arranged, although still not convinced. The second report really astounded me especially in terms of Hand to Eye coordination, balancing, hopping, running, understanding and following instructions.
Our son never stops playing Rugby Tots, GAA and Frisby. He can also follow complex instructions as testified at home and by childminder.
I am open to being convinced otherwise but my gut tells me that there is no disability and that it may be because he is a little shy, concentration skills need improving and perhaps socially immature.
The therapist really put the frighteners on me, she mentioned "severe receptive language issues", "if untreated would leave school early", "this is genetic on the male side".
Don't know where on the family tree this (if at all) but I certainly don't eventhough I told her that my teacher wanted me to repeat Junior Infants because I wouldn't talk or respond. I simply didn't like the teacher. My mother knew my ability and said no, since then I have gone through the 'system', got honours degree and been very successful in my career and life in general.
My regret is that I stayed outside filling forms while the therapist brought my son in alone. My wife said that was a mistake, that can be daunting for a 6 year old, particularly a shy child.
Not sure how professional it was of therapist to dispense the initial feedback while Son was in earshot and also not discussing the findings in more concrete terms. She said goodbye shortly after and I've been stewing on this since.
I've even scoured the internet looking at examples/videos of adults/children with "receptive language disorder" and my heart goes out to those people, but my son does not have that disability, those unfortunate people were really hampered.
Since then I've communicated, with my back turned, while in a different room, lengthy set of instructions and there genuinely is no issue.
Not really shocked anymore, just baffled and confused. He's not shy at home, so while I don't doubt the authenticity of the school teachers and the therapist. I hope they take a holistic look at this before applying an inaccurate label. I think as roselm pointed out above, shyness and distractibility could be at play here, which is a world away from the initial feedback.

juneg wrote: »

You could always go down the route of a private Educational / psychological assessment youself. It should cost about €350 or so and is done by an educational psychologist. Its great that he is functioning at home and that is encouraging. But he is not functioning as well in a big group so he does need something. I presume you have had his hearing checked out? Read up on motor planning and see if it checks any boxes for you too

Therapist said she will cross check with OT report and get an education psychologist to verify that his IQ is fine. His hearing has been tested and is fine.
I have to say that last year I did notice at school concerts that he wasn't really interested and he was standing out for the wrong reasons.
Then I thought this was me being harsh as he was only in Junior Infants and he wasn't the only kid that was out of sync with everything.
The teacher did say that she saw him in a new light when a dublin footballer came to the school (He's mad about Dublin). He gave a demo of how to solo the ball etc.
I genuinely think he has a strong personality and doesn't pretend to be interested in something that he's not and can be quite stubborn on it.
Obviously this is a concern in itself, but is more of a maturity thing.
It's a big difference from having a disability or 'innate' as the therapist described.
Will definitely be seeking a second opinion. The standardised test may say one thing, but my gut is telling me otherwise. Something doesn't add up.

Received report from SLT today.
Feeling deflated and confused now.
To Summarize the results were
1. Core Language Index - Moderate Difficulty.
2. Receptive Language Index - Severe Difficulty.
3. Expressive Language Index - Mild Difficulty.
4. Language Content Index - Severe Difficulty.

I was nearly crying. Then when my son came home, my mood changed as he doesn't seem to fit the gloomy prognosis of the report.
Might get a second opinion on this and also show the report to his teacher and also direct questions back to SLT.
Someone on here said the report is not infallible.