[blindkid] School psych & educational evaluations

holly miller hollym12 at gmail.com
Tue Sep 22 13:17:08 UTC 2009


Thank you Heather!
I hadn't thought of contacting the School for the Blind for retesting,
that's a great idea.

To add to the fun, Hank has only been speaking English for 3 years, we
adopted him from China at age 6.
The school psychologist who did the eval is also his IEP case manager.  She
is well aware of his unique situation but the best I can tell from her
written report (and yes, I will be asking!) she made no accommodations or
allowances in her scoring for either his visual or language issues.
I don't know what her background is from before she started at our school
but in our very small district, Hank is the only VI student and ESL students
are few and far between.

As a mom I don't hang the moon on any kind of standardized tests.  He's a
super smart cookie no matter what the numbers say but you are absolutely
right, painting an inaccurate picture has repercussions down the road.

Holly


On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 1:20 AM, H. Field <missheather at comcast.net> wrote:

> 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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> >>
> >>
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