Mobile Educational Testing Unit
METU provides a comprehensive approach to educational assessments, consultation and mental health services. We are a collaborative team of professionals committed to engaging with both the schools and families to ensure success for all students, including those with special needs.
We believe in the power of a team and emphasize being in the school setting versus in a clinical setting, which may lead to differing results.
Our assessments involve record reviews, observations, interviews, testing and recommendations to the parent, teachers and student. Each individual report is unique to the child’s profile and gives readable explanations of the testing results and strategies to maximize the child’s strengths and understand any relative or normative weaknesses.
What does a Speech-Language Pathologist do?
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) work to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, and cognitive-communication, in children.
- Speech disorders occur when a person has difficulty producing speech sounds correctly or fluently (e.g., stuttering is a form of disfluency) or has problems with his or her voice or resonance.
- Language disorders occur when a person has trouble understanding others (receptive language), or sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings (expressive language). Language disorders may be spoken or written and may involve the form (phonology, morphology, syntax), content (semantics), and/or use (pragmatics) of language in functional and socially appropriate ways.
- Social communication disorders occur when a person has trouble with the social use of verbal and nonverbal communication. These disorders may include problems (a) communicating for social purposes (e.g., greeting, commenting, asking questions), (b) talking in different ways to suit the listener and setting, and (c) following rules for conversation and story-telling. All individuals with autism spectrum disorder have social communication problems. Social communication disorders are also found individuals with other conditions, such as traumatic brain injury.
- Cognitive-communication disorders include problems organizing thoughts, paying attention, remembering, planning, and/or problem-solving. These disorders usually happen as a result of a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or dementia, although they can be congenital.
What does a Child Counseling Psychologist do?
Child psychology refers to the treatment of a wide range of issues and disorders that affect children and their families.The emotional, mental and behavioral disorders that affect children are often treated differently than adults. Typically, a child psychologist works with a minor client on a one-on-one basis in order to build trust and talk candidly. In many cases, a child’s caregivers or other important individuals (e.g. teacher) are involved in the treatment process. Some child psychologists focus on how behavioral and mental disorders affect learning. They may help students address their problems, implement performance plans and provide counseling for teachers and guardians.
What if myself or my child does not speak English?
Cultural considerations will be taken into account with the validity of testing. If the student speaks Khmer, we do have Khmer psychologists available to help with testing and translation. However, the helpfulness of a full assessment will need to be determined prior to proceeding, as tests are primarily done in English. (Once a test is modified with language it is no longer valid when using standardized scores.)
If the student is still developing the English Language, his/her learning and/or behavioral difficulties may be due to English Language Development (ELD) and acquisition processes versus a true learning disability.
A consultation may be a better and less costly approach depending on the case.