Gesell Developmental Assessment?

Re: Gesell Developmental Assessment?

• funchicken member

  June 2013

  -auntie-:

  I don't know anyone having a Gesell recently. It was recently re-done, but there's talk among some academics that the sample sizes on which it's based being smaller than other scales. She's not old enough for WPPSI, but did they do the Bayley Scales or the Vineland which cover a lot of the same territory.

  Gesell is a comprehensive test that looks at a range of skills including fine motor, sensory perception, adaptive skills, cognition. The score is made be dividing a child's performance age by their actual age and multiplying by 100. Some feel the result can be considered a sort of rough IQ. Other claim it's BS.

  I could see where a kid who wasn't meeting milestones because of global delays could do poorly on the test. 

  Thanks, Auntie.  I'll have to check the report to see if they did the other ones you mentioned.  The assessments that tested reading, math, figure drawing, memory, etc all had her at or significantly above her age level.  It's been six weeks since the evaluation, and she's actually reading at about a first grade level now, and I think her phonics skills are pretty good for a five year old (I used to teach reading).

  The dev. pedi did mention that DD's visual motor skills are behind her cognitive skills (which we already knew), so I was wondering to what degree the Gesell could have been influenced by that.
  

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• funchicken member

  June 2013

  Are you working to R/O or confirm a specific dx? Or does she just have a global delay and you are working to get more information around that?  Auntie, she was diagnosed with SPD by an OT a little less than a year ago.  At the time the OT assessed her fine motor skills at a 22 month level.  She has tactile defensiveness and vestibular issues that affect motor planning, coordination, and balance, and a probable auditory processing glitch.  We've been in private OT for 10 months.

  Gross motor, speech, and hand-eye coordination are all fine, so when we had her evaluated by the school district they found no educational disability.  We pushed for a dev. pedi referral because we were concerned about HFA or Asperger's.  The dev. pedi said DD was definitely not autistic.  Honestly, as far as I can tell her social skills are appropriate for her age.  Her teacher agrees.  We also had a special education teacher from the school district do a classroom observation, and she felt that DD's social skills were appropriate.
  

  Evaluations of of kids prior to about 2nd grade can be all over the place.

  According to DS's psychologist, most of the scales used around more academic skills for kindie and younger kids produce a result that is more about the child's family background than their academic potential. A child who has been in a quality academic preschool or day care program or who has a parent who is teaching these skills is going to test well in tests normed to include kids who have not had those advantages.  Sure, that makes sense.  Her preschool is play-based, but she does go every day. 
  

  While the test gives you data, it might not give a complete picture of what's actually going on. A kid who tests cognitively ahead of peers could be precocious, bright and/or enriched. It's hard to say which this early on. It's one of the reasons a good team will throw a lot of tests at a child this age- to get a 360 look at what's going on. The good thing about Gesell, is that it looks at skills from a purely developmental standpoint rather than just those that are taught. 

  It would be interesting to compare a WPPSI and a BASC2 or Vineland to the Gesell.  I'll definitely ask about all of this at our next appointment.  The dev ped diagnosed ADHD inattentive-type and made recommendations for a 504 for kindy, but she also said we would have to wait and see how kindy goes, and keep an eye out for other issues as DD approached 2nd grade.
  

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• funchicken member

  June 2013

  -auntie-:

  The dev pedi or the neuropsych who did these evals should be able to explain them to you.

  It's great that they sent a teacher to observe in class; that's really the best way to get a feel for the social piece and much more representative of her social skills than relying entirely on teacher or parent reporting. Even so, I know a number of parents who were assured their child wasn't on spectrum by clinicians who didn't do ADOS, GADS, GARS or CARS and who were dx'd later.

  It's pretty typical to take a wait and see approach. Many of her weaker areas are likely to improved with just age alone. 

  I'm not sure we'd be doing things much differently at this point even if she had gotten a different diagnosis.  She's still doing weekly OT, and I have her enrolled in six weeks of day camp this summer.  They all have different themes, and the day is longer than she'll have in half-day kindy next year.  We'll just have to wait and see what next year brings
  

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