Today’s episode argues for the crucial necessity of psychoeducational reports in special education, asserting that without them, support plans for students with Individualised Education Programs (IEPs) are based on guesswork rather than understanding. Written by a Resource Specialist Programme (RSP) teacher, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, the source article details how funding shortages for school psychologists prevent these vital assessments from being performed, leading to teachers “flying blind” when developing personalised interventions. Dr. Hoerricks specifically champions three assessment tools—the WISC-V, NEPSY-II, and Beery VMI—for their ability to reveal the cognitive “why” behind reading struggles, linking these diagnostic tools to the research of Kibby et al. (2015) on visual sequential memory deficits in reading disorders. Recognising the systemic challenges and tool limitations, she also suggests informal observational methods like playing chess or Lego with students to gather cognitive clues in the absence of formal data.
Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/when-theres-no-map-what-happens-when
Let me know what you think.
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