I am a Clinical Psychologist with fifteen years experience of working in the NHS and a mother of four children. At the age of only five,your son is at the very beginning of his education and in many countries he wouldn't even have started school yet. In my opinion there is a very unhealthy rush to diagnosis and just because you give something a name - dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dyslexia etc doesn't necessarily help the child and can be extremely counter productive especially at this young age. I would be extremely concerned about a school that was pushing you towards formal assessment at this age and suspicious that they are more concerned about their results than providing your child with a fully rounded education. There are lots of people making a living out of providing diagnostic assessments and then offering you the opportunity to keep on paying for therapeutic intervention on top. My advice would be to read to him a lot, avoid making literacy and numeracy a huge chore and if in a year or two he is not making progress then think about formal assessment. He is not old enough for the best assessments anyway at this stage. I would certainly prioritise tree climbing and mud pie production just now and allow him to develop in his own time, I am sure he will thank you for it in the long run. Best of luck.

Hi,
You can also try CAMHS at St. Georges Hospital - they are a great team of professionals & help with any queries you have.

We've used Annie Mitchell - we were happy with her report, but she's very busy and was hard to get into. Her number is: 07889242241 or amitchellep@googlemail.com

I have friends who have used Dirk Flowers - he works at Flower Associates - 0845 070 7778 http://www.flowerassociates.co.uk/

Good luck!

I have also just had my son assessed by Elizabeth Powell - we discovered that his writing speed was in the bottom 2 % for his age and I can't begin to tell you what a difference being able to use a laptop (and 25% extra time in exams) has made in the short term - to his self-esteem if nothing else. (Also some very wierd discrepancies that hopefully he will be able to work on)

I had my son assessed by Elisabeth Powell (020 8675 1957) based near Tooting Common. She came recommended to me by my son's (secondary) school.

My son had been having "problems" for years, but they were so vague neither his teachers nor I could work out what it might be. He was a voracious reader, so wasn't dyslexic. He was good at maths, so not dyscalculia. He played sport, so not dyspraxic. He wasn't hyperactive, so not ADHD... but we felt something just wasn't "right".

Elisabeth Powell was the third educational psychologist who had seen my son.

The first was via my GP when my son was 7. After about 45 minutes of different 'tests', she couldn't work out what his problem might be.

The second was private, recommended by his primary school. After great cost, he basically told me that I was doing too much for my son and he needed to take more responsibility for himself. As he'd never bothered to interview me, he was entirely wrong. I pointed this out to him and he didn't listen. He basically had decided that too many mums mollycoddle their children and as I was a mum, I clearly did exactly the same. Total waste of money.

Elisabeth Powell did a thorough, several hour assessment of him after a lengthy interview with me about his history and it turned out that he had dysgraphia! No wonder we couldn't work it out. It's a very specific form of dyspraxia and comes with other issues associated with dyspraxia (attention and organisational issues). Though his 'intelligence' is above average (85-95%), his writing speed is in the slowest 10% of all children his age.

Suddenly, everything made sense! He is now learning touch typing and will be able to use a laptop and have extra time on his exams. Also, his confidence has gone up, the school is no longer treating his organisational problems as disciplinary issues and the future is looking much brighter now.

I highly recommend Elisabeth Powell as she was the only one who took the time to genuinely search for my son's problem.

I've also had a look at the Children's Therapies site and this is a list of how they can help...

http://www.childrenstherapies.co.uk/therapists

A

Your school SENCO should organise a free assessment for you. If you're going private then go by personal recommendation as the companies who assess tend to also offer solutions/equipment and therapy sessions so it's somewhat in their interest to find a reason to sell you something. It can also be quite pricey to get the same diagnosis as when going through your school ed psych.
Hope this helps:)

Ok, this is the gentlemen I mentioned, he is a Dyslexia Consultant.

Alastair Coomes
dyslexic@mac.com

tel. 07971 020804

Mr NappyValleyNet mentioned your query to him this morning.

Good luck

A

Hi
Thanks for using the site and I hope we can help.

There are two good friends of NappyValleyNet who should be able to help.

Firstly, the Children's Therapies are a local network of practioners, their website is below

http://www.childrenstherapies.co.uk/

Secondly, I will also mention this to a the father of one of my son's rugby friends. He works in this field (specialist in dyslexia) so he may well be able to point you in the right direction.

Thanks again and good luck

A

My 5 year old son's teacher has recommended that I get him special needs assessed. I have a suspicion that he could be dyslexic. I have looked on line and there are hundreds of eduational phsychologists advertising. Could anyone recommend an educational physchologist that you have used? Thank you