Psychoeducational Assessment in Edmonton | Edmonton Programs Every Parent Should Know About
Hi there, my name is Dr. Kelly Clarke. Today I wanted to talk about accommodations in school. So often, when you’re receiving a psychoeducational assessment in Edmonton, something that comes out of these assessment measures of intelligence, academics, and/or emotional-behavioral concerns are recommendations for improvement. But often, parents are not aware of the—there’s a lot of resources available through schools primarily, but also in communities and through agencies that can help your child develop and grow into the—to the adolescent and—and adult that, of course, we want them to grow into in keeping with their abilities and skills.
Early Childhood Development
The first area that I wanted to talk about is early on in development. So when children are two, three years old, often parents are getting an idea and comparing and chatting with other parents about their child’s development. They have a sense that, yes, my child is developing pretty normally, and they’re feeling comfortable with that. In other cases, where, say, speech is delayed or, say, walking is delayed or the child is clearly not walking or showing motoric or movement abilities similar to most kids—maybe they’re not ambulatory at all, require wheelchairs—these kind of things: those more severe pressing needs create the need for parents to take a look at services. And there certainly are services out there through family supports with children with disabilities and—and other community agencies that can help children that are developing at a different rate or having some struggles that are that are very clear.
Early Pediatric Assessments
But some of the assessment services that you may want to consider, of course, is going through a pediatrician early on. There are other services such as early educational programs. So, for example, say your child is having difficulties developing speech or motoric skills, fine motor difficulties—they don’t seem to draw or have difficulties even grasping a pencil or—or these kind of things—there are early education programs that are offered within in the community through both the Catholic School Board and the Edmonton Public School Board. Sometimes these programs are offered through your local school, so, you know, a program might be offered through your local school. Or there are some programs like ELVES, there’s also 100 Voices, and other various programs you could take a look at on the web for various programs that are out there for offering early educational supports.
Program Unit Funding – PUF
In these cases, when there’s basic assessments around speech, movement, intelligence—these kind of things—often students are then able to qualify for something called Program Unit Funding, or PUF funding. And so, in this case, there is extra funds allocated to help your child develop speech, motor skills, and to address more significant assessment needs. So I wanted to let you know that those services are available for early developmental ages before the age of five.
School Boards in Edmonton: ISP and CLS Programs
Once children get to around five years old, of course, the Edmonton Public School Board—I’m speaking of course locally to Edmonton—and the Catholic School Board, as well as private agencies, have various resources available, and they will accommodate the needs of your child in the school board. So, for example, in the earlier case that I was mentioning, say that a child has clear speech difficulties, cannot speak at all, has ambulatory issues, cannot walk or move at all, requires a wheelchair. Often there’s programs through Edmonton Public School Board: there’s programs called the ISP programs, which are highly structured programs that offer much higher teacher-to-student ratio. These are teachers that are trained in even helping to feed the children, helping them move and developing very basic cognitive skills, academic skills, even basic speech—often involved in speech or occupational therapy. So these ISP programs are very intensive, highly structured programs.
We also have programs for those that are developmentally a bit stronger or more advanced called the CLS programs. These are programs for children who have profound intellectual disabilities, but they’re more ambulatory: they can move around and they can interact with kids so that they can develop what we call community life skills. And so they’re developing more the kind of social life skills necessary for functioning more independently, but they may have profound difficulties learning typical cognitive or academic skills, than say the typically developing child.
The Opportunity Program in Edmonton Schools
Then we have programs where we have mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. So they actually have thinking challenges, reasoning challenges characteristic of lower IQ. In these programs—at least in the Edmonton Public School Board—and the Catholic School Board has similar programs; there’s a program called the Opportunity Program. And these again are highly accommodated programs where they’ve changed even the classroom setting so that there’s less student-to-teacher ratio. Again, there’s more help, there’s educational assistance, and they’re developing more basic cognitive abilities, more basic social skills and academic skills. But this would be at a higher level than the previously mentioned programs. So again, very highly accommodated, structured programs that are very focused, and their specific sites are curtailed to helping a child with an intellectual disability.
The Literacy Skills Program
Then we get to the area where there’s children who do not have an intellectual disability, but they might be a little bit lower-end, lower-average intellectual functioning. So in that case they’re having academic skills that are not developing as strong as, say, the typical average neurotypical child, but they need extra help. And so often there are programs called, like, the Literacy Skills Program, where these children are going to have access to, again, more teacher-to-student ratio. They’re meeting the student where they’re at academically and helping to develop those skills. There is not, of course, that same burden academically which often can create feelings of poor self-esteem if I’m not developing compared to a regular child. As well, these programs help the children to develop their self-esteem stronger because they’re meeting them where they’re at.
Another program that’s offered—and we get into the learning disabilities type of language—is when the child is determined to have an average intellectual capacity; they think as well, they reason as well as most typical kids, but they’re struggling academically. So I’ll often get parents coming to me saying, “You know what? I’ve got a smart boy or girl, a smart student, and they’re struggling though with reading. Really concerned about that,” or writing—there’s their graphomotor skills, illegible writing—and we’re concerned about this. So we’ll have parents come out; also teachers are great resources, and they will start to flag these students and then talk to parents about, “Hey, you’ve got a smart, definitely an intelligent student there, but they’re struggling; they’re lagging behind in their literacy skills and other mathematics skills,” and these kind of things.
Individual Program Plan
So in these cases, often a psychoeducational assessment will reveal that there’s a learning disability: good cognitive capacity, or say typical cognitive capacity, but struggling in these academic areas. In these cases, with all of the kids that I have talked about, school programs will develop what we call an Individual Program Plan. So once it is determined that there’s some challenges in these areas, now the school personnel and the teacher design a program plan that individually meets the needs of the child where they’re at. So in the case of a learning disability, the child is now put in, say, sometimes a regular academic program, but they’re given curtailed or modified educational curriculum, and they’re provided extra help in the classroom, and that’s put in an IPP so that they’ll get that specific help. Often it needs to be documented though through a psychoeducational assessment that this difficulty is there for them to be meriting or warranting that extra help.
Academy of King Edward
Then there are specific sites as well. There are like the Academy of King Edward here in Edmonton, which is a school completely set up for kids who have learning disabilities. So again, one of the benefits is all these kids are learning kind of at the same pace, even though they have regular or typical intelligence, and they don’t suffer that same self-esteem issue as they’re looking over at their friend who’s getting the math or the reading or the writing at a much quicker pace. Now they’re with kids that are having the same difficulties; they feel better about themselves, and they’re getting the accommodations and the support they need in the classroom.
Learning Disability Strategies Program
As children move through schooling—and so these programs are also called, whether it’s a Learning Disability Strategies Program in some cases—as they move through elementary and junior high school, many parents will of course be versed on what the programming is out there and they realize there are accommodations. But it changes in high school. So say, for example, if a student had lower intellectual abilities, there’s programs called, like, for example, the Knowledge and Employability Program, which focuses more on life skills, career skills, independence skills as they move and transition into adulthood, and less on academic skills. So these are kids that have been diagnosed, say, with an intellectual disability and they’re struggling and their academic skills are lower, so again meeting the student where they’re at and actually having a program that accommodates and meets their needs at their level.
Many of us might be aware of, you know, the academic stream, which in Edmonton the Edmonton area is called the “-1 level” program. And in these cases, they’re in regular academic programming. So these are kids that would typically go on to, you know, to university or to NAIT or trade schools there, but their academic skills are similar to most people their age, and that would qualify them for more academic programs moving on to post-secondary.
Applied Learning Stream in Edmonton Schools
Then we’re aware of those programs that have, say, for example, English 30-2; that’s the “-2” programs, or Math 30-2. This is called the Applied Learning stream, and so these are kids that are struggling more in these academic skills. They still may have good intellectual ability, strong typical intellectual ability, but they’re struggling academically and need that extra support so that the curriculum is a bit modified so that it’s more of applied, everyday type of reading and writing and mathematics.
Then we get to the “-3” level, which is getting to a lower level. These are kids that are going to struggle more in an academic program moving forward. Still, the school gives accommodation support in the classroom, but they would be students that are not typically maybe going to go on to, say, university-level post-secondary but into commensurate similar level academic programs that they could move into, say, diploma programs moving forward.
IPPs: Individual Program Plans
So in all of these cases, there are accommodations and IPPs—Individual Program Plans—that would carry through right from kindergarten through Grade 12. It’s often a good idea, if your child has had some learning challenges all the way, to have a recent psychoeducational assessment completed before they move on to post-secondary studies because another benefit moving forward—and of course one of the benefits nowadays because of the more information we have—is that students need continued support going into university, trade programs, NAIT, these diploma programs, and various other schools such as Northwest College that offer nursing and various professional diploma programs necessary for working.
In these programs, often there are many accommodations such as having more time on tests, preferential seating, the provision of notes before class—and these, by the way, are things provided to kids going through school as well: preferential seating, adult coaching, movement breaks—these kind of things are accommodations provided in schools all the way through. But as they enter into post-secondary studies, similar kind of accommodations are provided to students moving forward, especially if they have had diagnoses such as ADHD or they’ve had a learning disability. They would certainly qualify for ongoing support and accommodations in their program as they move forward.
Many Programs: Parents Don’t Have to Feel Isolated
So often there’s things like a private room, double time or a time and a half for testing, even the use of headphones to screen out noises around them. These are services and accommodations provided by post-secondary educational programs. In addition, there are services—or rather funding—for kids who are, of course, turned into adults as they move on to higher level education where they can get disability grants that can also help them to have, you know, things like laptops and other provisions to have things like natural reader or dictation software, reading programs that read questions to them—many kind of things to help support and accommodate their learning needs as they move through post-secondary studies.
So I wanted to give you an idea of some of the accommodations out there. Hopefully this is helpful, but if you would like more information about psychoeducational assessments in Edmonton, feel free to contact me or other psychologists at www.drkellyclarke.com. Thank you.