what is an Educational Psychologist?
An Educational Psychologist is commonly known as an EP or Ed Psych and works with young people from birth to 25 years old to bring about positive change for concerns relating to an individuals development, such as social skills, emotional difficulties, behavioural concerns and learning difficulties. EPs also often work with other professionals such as Teachers, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists and Paediatricians.
How can we help?
Your dedicated EP will work in collaboration with you to complete a range of assessments, observations and consultations to complete a thorough assessment of the young person’s needs, to understand strengths and difficulties, to make recommendations for support and provision.
We work with both parents and schools, and we complete assessments both at home and/or in the young person’s educational setting. We also work in children’s home, pre-schools, colleges and universities.
Our involvement entails a detailed consultation with parents, discussions with relevant professionals and school staff, consideration of all background documentation, observations of the young person and individual assessment on a one-to-one with the young person.
what to expect from an educational psychology assessment
EP Advice is provided in line with the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Code of Practice 2015. All of our EP’s are trained and experienced to draw out the necessary information they require in a short space of time to understand the child. We are skilled at using the short time we have to get the most information from the sources available to us.
EPs must make their own careful, professional, and measured judgements about what is within scope for them to comment on – where other professional advice is available this will be referred to. In the absence of this, the EP will comment on strengths and needs regarding issues which effect the young person’s education/access to the curriculum, deemed to be within scope for them to comment on.
On the day of the assessment, the EP will tailor the activities in accordance with the child’s presentation and needs and for the purpose of the assessment. Due to this, each assessment is unique to the child; each activity chosen and the length of each assessment varies. It is not always appropriate and/or effective to complete standardised psychometric assessments.
Each EP will maintain strict ethical considerations throughout their time with the child to ensure the child’s anxiety is kept to a minimum. This may also mean an assessment is stopped before all activities are completed, if deemed appropriate to do so by the EP.
Following the assessment, the information is compiled into a report which is fit for the purpose it is intended for. Whist EP Advices follow a broad format, some information may not be beneficial to include in the report, such as detailed statistical information from the psychometric assessment, or extensive narrative of observational information.
The report will:
- provide specific recommendations/strategies/provision targeted as to the assessment and the child’s needs and outcomes recommended, unless there are clearly stated reasons for not doing so.
- include a good but brief background history, if not included in previous documents.
- include parent’s/carers, child and school/teacher’s perspective in a clear, succinct and focused manner, avoiding lengthy narratives.
- maintain a balance of information from all parties to inform a clear conclusion with a focus on the child and the child’s needs.
- accurately identify the needs that are in the child’s interests – not influenced by a party’s wishes, time constraints or lack of resources. These identified needs may differ from what other professionals, parents/carers, teachers perceive to be the child’s needs.
- record results from assessments / subtests where appropriate and beneficial, and a brief descriptor of how this score will impact the child.
- explain the assessment findings in layman’s terms but ensuring descriptions are succinct and focused to the purpose of the report
The report will NOT:
- detail everything that has been said and observed as part of the assessment.
- repeat information in other documents from school or other professionals.
- detail information of specific programmes and interventions for staff or parents to do. There are many of these and the adults will be best to use the one’s they have knowledge, training and experience of without the EP specifying one from an extensive list.
- describe activities for parents/carers to do at home, unless this is the specific requested purpose of the report.
working to understand your child
