Support & FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

7 Questions about learning difficulties or a psycho-educational assessment.

A teacher may indicate to the parent, or you as the parent is likely to already be aware, that there is a concern about the child’s progress, such as falling behind the level of their peers despite having participated in significant learning support.

Despite all the strong teaching and significant learning support, some children can struggle to recognise common words (e.g. said, they, was), may find it difficult to recognise sounds in words and blend those sounds together to form whole words (phonemic decoding), and may have stilted reading or labour over their reading. This may be a reading difficulty.

A child may have difficulty with their handwriting, in forming letters, letter spacing, writing on a line, writing away from the margin down the page. They may have difficulty with spelling and putting their ideas onto paper. This may be a written expression difficulty (language-based).

Despite all the solid maths teaching and significant learning support, children can have difficulty understanding numbers, maths symbols, what the symbols mean, and difficulty understanding times tables, fractions or more complex maths sums. This may be a maths difficulty.

Significant learning support is additional learning on top of the normal classroom activities and practise. This may include areas such as a structured phonics based (sounds) learning programs, structured maths program in a small group or one to one situation or even outside of school tutoring.

  1. Children with attention difficulties can find it difficult to focus on teacher instructions, group learning or individual learning tasks.
  2. Their brain is often over-reacting to stimulus and they find it difficult to sit still and concentrate.
  3. They will ‘miss out’ on essential information and will need instructions repeated or help to understand what is required of them.
  1. If you feel like your child is underachieving, is struggling to academically ‘keep up’ with their peers.
  2. If you would like insight into why your child is struggling and would like to investigate whether they simple need some additional support or have an underlying learning disorder that can be supported throughout their education.
  3. If you would like to know if their behaviour is impacting on their learning and, if so, find out some strategies to support their behaviour in the classroom and at home.
  4. If you would like to understand your child’s intellectual and academic strengths and weaknesses and provide additional support for their ongoing learning and education.
  5. To assist my child to understand how they learn the best, understanding their strengths and how to learn strategies to support and develop their own learning skills.
  6. Early intervention is best – gaining information to support your child’s learning in the early years can help them to reach their future potential.
  7. Older child assessments can continue to support their education through providing additional learning support and in school learning accommodations to support their daily learning.
  8. In secondary school, an assessment can support their education in showing areas of strengths and weaknesses and strategies to support in their academic and school test/exam situations.
What else could be the source of my child’s learning difficulties?

It is important to investigate areas of social or emotional development if there are concerns that they are not as well developed as their peers. Of course, children will develop at different rates. However, for early intervention into such concerns see a paediatrician.

If you are concerned about your child’s language development, or speech, it is important to discuss this with a speech pathologist who will often conduct a speech-language assessment to investigate whether your child is simply slightly delayed in their language development or whether there is a language disorder which will impact upon their understanding of other’s speech, interpreting verbal information, communicating with others and their understanding of written information (texts).

How can a Psychologist help?

A psychologist can conduct an assessment to investigate cognitive abilities and academic skills and behaviours, providing a comprehensive written report with test results, findings (such as a diagnosis for a Specific Learning Disorder or Attention Deficit Disorder, if warranted), and school and home recommendations and strategies for ongoing learning support.

How can Purple Giraffe Psychology help? What to Expect.

At Purple Giraffe Psychology, your child will meet with a highly experienced, qualified and friendly psychologist, focussed on helping them feel comfortable in the assessment situation, and focused on their well-being throughout. An assessment will take approximately 2 ¼ hours, with a mid-session (approximately) 10-minute‘ brain break’, ‘re-charge’ the battery to focus on the second part of the assessment.

What to expect in an assessment with Purple Giraffe Psychology.

If you or your child’s school have concerns about your child’s academic progress and/or learning difficulties, Purple Giraffe Psychology would be honoured to help you in investigating your concerns.

Should you wish to know more about how to support your child in the classroom with their ongoing education, please contact Purple Giraffe Psychology via the form or information located on the contact page.

Contact Purple Giraffe Psychology