Isaac's psychological evaluation

Two weeks ago, we sent Isaac for his psychological eval. It was a 4-hour test with an attractive, soft-spoken Canadian psychologist. The evaluation, including a review session and a full report, cost us $1000. Ouch.

KH says that if the psych eval comes up with something to support an exemption from Chinese, it would be money well-spent. If it does not, he would personally make the psychologist re-write the report! Mr Sledgehammer KH at his subtle best here.

I think it will go decently well. At least I hope so, I hope my gut feel is not wrong. By definition and observation, Isaac's eye contact is poor, fleeting at best; his discomfort in social situations etc all reflected strongly in reports from his teachers, from his therapist and from us as parents. He still has some faint remnant of his autistic behavior - finger stimming, echolalia.

In the cognitive tests, the psychologist told us that Isaac performed very well in some tests and not so well in others. One test that he did very well in was an auditory processing test where the tape recorder spewed out some words in quick succession and Isaac had to repeat those in the correct order. It got harder and harder as the mix of words and numbers got longer and longer. The highest score was >31. Isaac scored 37. The psychologist said in her years of testing and scoring, she had never seen this kind of score.

I asked: if he could score so well, how come that does not translate into his grades? Is it because we do not push enough?

She replied: Could be. Or it could be the sign of an underlying learning disability.

He didn't score as well when pictograms were used. The psychologist said this could well indicate why he does not do well in Chinese because of the use of pictograms.

I can hope!

Well, we will know tomorrow. KH and I are due back in the psychologist office tomorrow evening for the review.

Fingers crossed please.