[blindkid] School psych & educational evaluations

H. Field missheather at comcast.net
Tue Sep 22 05:20:42 UTC 2009


Holly,
It has been my experience that these tests are given to legally blind 
children and the results are scored as though the children could see 
normally. When the children have had the kind of variable vision 
issues that hank has, I have never seen one test result where the 
child's performance has not been significantly compromised by the 
inability to see the test. I have seen children given very low 
cognitive scores, just because that's how the numbers added up. 
Usually, school psychologists have not worked with children with small 
amounts of varable vision and they have no idea what to do. So, they 
treat the child as if they can see normally.
In your shoes, I would not accept the results of any visual tests. 
Unless they can prove that the lighting, test format/font size, and so 
on, were adjusted to meet Hank's unique visual needs, I would insist 
that the psyche evaluations were not put into his school records. It 
may not seem a big deal now, but it will sure blow up if they are 
scoring him as a borderline intellectually handicapped child and you 
start requesting advanced academic classes for him in middle or high 
school, and you start talking about college. Remember, this will be in 
his records until he leaves school at 17 or 18 years of age.

Perhaps you should request a retesting with more appropriate tests or, 
suggest that you take him to the school for the blind in your state, 
to be tested there by a psychologist who knows what they're doing with 
low vision children and testing.

Just my thoughts as a special education teacher and an advocate.

Regards,

Heather Field



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "holly miller" <hollym12 at gmail.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 10:01 PM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] School psych & educational evaluations


That's the Rorschach test :-) **

The Bender Gestalt is educational based rather than mental-health 
based.
http://www.minddisorders.com/A-Br/Bender-Gestalt-Test.html is the 
simplest
explanation I can find so far.  I wish I could see actual examples 
before
the meeting though :-/

Holly

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 10:36 PM, Barbara Hammel <poetlori8 at msn.com> 
wrote:

> Okay, it's been 22 years since I had beginning Psych in college, but 
> isn't
> the Bender Gestalt test a visual one.  Isn't that the one where the 
> person
> being tested has to tell you what he thinks he sees in the picture 
> and the
> picture is abstract enough to be seen different ways?
> Barbara
>
> If wisdom's ways you wisely seek, five things observe with care:  of 
> whom
> you speak, to whom you speak, and how and when and where.
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "holly miller" <hollym12 at gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 8:51 PM
> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
> <
> blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: [blindkid] School psych & educational evaluations
>
>  Hi!
>> Recently Hank had his 3 year IEP re-evaluations done.
>> In reading the reports, I'm wondering how his vision could be 
>> affecting
>> his
>> ability to understand what was being asked of him & give the proper
>> responses.
>> It seems a no brainer that there would be some impact but since I 
>> have no
>> idea what the testing materials look like, it's hard to understand 
>> what
>> some
>> of the pitfalls would be.
>> At our next IEP meeting (Thursday) I'm going to ask them to explain 
>> & show
>> me the testing materials but I'd feel more confident if I can glean 
>> some
>> of
>> this info ahead of time.
>>
>> Hank is 9 and has Albinism.  His acuity is 20/200 paired with 
>> photo-phobia
>> and Nystagmus.  Which -for those of you who have been following our 
>> saga
>> know - in district & commission speak that means tossing him some 
>> hand
>> held
>> magnifiers, dark pencils and slapping papers on the xyrox to 
>> enlarge them
>> should be all he needs.
>>
>> Anyhoo
>> The tests in question are
>> Bender Gestalt
>> WISC-IV
>> and Woodcock-Johnson III Form A
>>
>> Thanks so much!
>> Holly
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