Very so often, we see families who are unsure as to where they are heading with their child’s multiple therapies as they are in a situation where they are trying out different programs without quite knowing what is working. Our Educational Psychologist will look at what is working and provide an in depth know how as to whether the therapies are really of benefit to the child and the family. This is particularly important if the therapies that the families are on are failing to address the core issues or deficits that can be potential obstacles to the improvement of the child.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to see an Educational Psychologist still for an assessment and diagnosis which I am uncomfortable with but I can see that there is something wrong with my child?
You do not need to have an assessment done for our Ed Psychologist will still be able to guide you along in terms of advising you as to where the issues are. A profile of your child can be established through the information provided during the initial consultation sessions. If need be, the information gathered can also be validated with school reports, observations of your child in the various settings as well as from parental/teacher interviews too. The establishment of the profile will then better allow our Educational Psychologist to better guide the family on what needs to be done in the way of helping address the needs of the child.
My ASD child has been doing speech and language therapy and while there are improvements, I can still see that he is unable to have conversations or even share his experiences with me. Am I missing something?
Language communication without communicative intent can actually be a major obstacle in developing reciprocal conversations. So it is important that the foundations of social communication are worked on based on the presented model so that certain foundations are laid from a bottom up approach.
If your child continues to exhibit the following odd language patterns, then there is a need to address the dysregulatory language state. The following idiosyncratic language patterns can serve as obstacles to the establishment of reciprocal 2-way communication with your child.
I have noticed that in spite of multiple therapies and also intervention, it seems that my child is plateauing and at times I have also noticed that there seems to be regression. Is something going on that I am not aware of.
Very often in a situation like this, certain core obstacles have not been dealt with and usually the child may not be functioning as a consistent apprentice to the relevant parties concerned. It is also imperative to ascertain if the child still has control issues or if the child is in a constant state of dysregulation. Both controlling/resistant behaviour and the different forms of dysregulation will render any intervention approach ineffective after a period of time. There are also cases where the child may have an auto immune issue or a very specific underlying neurological issue that has not been picked up that can be impeding the development of the child. Our Ed Psychologist will help you determine where the obstacles are so that they can be remediated as soon as possible.
It has been suggested that my ADHD child needs to be medicated and I am not sure if that is the right thing to do. Should I consider medication as I am aware of the side effects?
The issue with medication is not the side effects as that is something that we are clear about. The main thing to consider when we are using medication is the burn down rate of the particular drug that we are using and making sure that we are able to track when we are wanting it to function at its most optimum period. This is especially so as the demands on your child can vary day to day in the school context, and this optimum window period (which can last for a few hours) may vary depending on the time table for the day. As such, it is important that we are able to track the effects of the medication over a period of time so that a baseline is obtained with regards to how well it is working specific to the different days.
We are from overseas and so can we still access services?
Distance is not an issue as we do work with clients who are regionally based in other countries. With the use of modern technology (eg skype, Face Time and video calls), sessions can still continue on a weekly basis or on a schedule that is agreed upon by the family and Bimal. There have also been situations when Bimal has travelled to the country concerned if the family requires it.