What will the assessment be like?

Hi, Sonshine!

I had to laugh at the smilie at the end of your post! I [i]hope[/i] it isn’t that bad!

I’m an untested adult but both my children went though LD testing, one as an elementary student, one as a middle schooler. I can tell you about their testing and then perhaps one of the other adult LDer can tell you his or her experince.

Extensive IQ tests are done. Many, many subtests to determine your strenghts and weeknesses.

Achievment tests are done to calculate your actual performance. The school work samples you handed in are part of this. Some tests are timed, some are open. Some require reading and answering questions.Some are more essay like.

In the older child’s case, a Conners (sp?) test was administered to test attention and implusivity. This is a long, boring computer test where you strike certain keys when certain letters appear and you are not to strike any key when others appear. As we had no concerns in this area for the other child, this was not done for him.

An intenstive family history/background was taken to see if other conditions were present which might appear as LD.

Interviews on when *problems* were noted was done to determine if it might be something along the lines of proforance anxity instead of LD.

Niether child minded the test. Both thought it was kind of fun.

Good luck to you!

Thank you for the info you shared. I’m glad your kids didn’t mind it…i’m still nervous…In many ways I hope they say i’m fine and “normal” but in a million other ways I hope they tell me that I have a learning disability so that then there is a reason as to why everything has been so hard in school!
anyhow I guess I’ll find out more on wednesday of next week!

thanks again…if you think of anything else to share please do!
:)

HI,
i’m not sure why it said my username sunshien is already taken…so i had to use soleada…sometimes it lets me use sunshine sometiems it doesn’t…but both are me :)

I know what you mean about the mixed feelings!

Good luck and let us know what YOU thought of the test.

:)

Well yesterday I went through the intake test…I did a reading comprehension thing and a vocabulary test whicch i did really poorly on. I coudl have done a lot better if I had more time but they were timed tests. Then I did some other little tests which were easier. There were thigns like circleing the 2 things that are similar(I got them all right but i don’t know if i went too slow)…and I had to repeat back number backwards..that was s ohard for some reason! I had to find the next peice of a pattern, I had to read a paragrapgh with wrods that weren’t english, a spelling test (of easy words!) …oh and one that was so hard for some reason was a timed thing wherei had to list all the words i could think of that start with “s”…i did so badly! And as soon as I got home i thought of so many more! I also had to tell all the animals i could think of…that was way easier! Anyhow it wasn’t too bad, just a long afternoon. Tomorrow they will call me to arrange my next set of tests.
not as bad as i thought it would be…not so far anyways!

You know, it actually sounds like it was kind of interesting! Thanks for the update.

One that the evaluator had ME do was to trace a complex pattern. It looked kind of like a house tipped on its side with a flag sticking out of one end and a cross on the top. He kept track of which lines you drew first…both my dyslexic sons and little ole dyslexic me drew it one way, their non-dyslexic father drew it a different way. Interesting!

Take care and good luck tomarrow.

Wow ok they told me I have to go for 2 more days of tests…that’s quite a bit…those’ll be long days…but that’s ok. So i guess now coem the real tests? were the ones I took the first day just a sample of what I will have on those days? I hope it’s not too hard! I’ll keep you posted on here…it’s nice to have a place to share what i’m goign through…I’m not telling my parents about this so it’s nice to write about it on here!
:)

Don’t be so sure you did badly!!!!
*ANYONE* is going to be able to think of a million more things beginning with whatever, later.
Remember, they keep goigjn with tests *until* you’ve messed up enough no matter how good you are, so you’re going to finish with failure if you’re anywhere near normal.
It can be hard on the psyche to be under a microscope… you’re being brave :-) Keep it up :-) Go into those tests prepared to show ‘em how *smart * you are and focus on the stuff you got right and *not* what you’ve missed, or whether gosh, you got it right but of course it was slow. Just what *would* it take for you to say “oh, I got a lot of those right, kewl!” :-) without “I did well, BUT…” — they call that negative self talk, ya kow :-)

Yeah, Sue makes a good point! They just keep making the test harder until you do “fail.” Don’t worry about it. That’s their nature.

My younger son is really easy going but did think he did badly because he got to a point in one test that he couldn’t do. Yet, it turned out that this 10 year old was being asked high school level questions. It was just a test in an area he happens to be really good at. :lol:

Thanks for the replys…I didn’t mean to sound negative at all! It wasnt a bad expereince…it’s actually quite interesting-it’s kind of like little games or mind teasers. Anyhow we’ll see what thursday brings (day 2 of tests)! Thanks again..have a good day :)

Hey Sue,
Just wanted to say I just looked at your website…and it’s awsome! Good job! There are so many resources there…I’ll definitely be looking through of the info for both myself and for when I become a teacher!

:)