The role of educational psychologists

5 Questions every parent would like to ask an educational psychologist

An educational psychologist is concerned with supporting children and young people within an educational setting. They are there to help your child find more effective means with which to learn. We chat to consultant child educational psychologist Laverne Antrobus, whose work includes consulting on House of Tiny Tearaways.

1. Why might children need to see an educational psychologist?

In a situation where a parent or school feel that a child's learning isn't progressing in the way they would want it to, and the child is becoming quite stuck with learning (be that specific to reading and writing, or in terms of levels of confidence in the classroom) an educational psychologist would be consulted. It tends to come from a school and parents who liaise about the child's progression.

2. How does an educational psychologist support a child?

An educational psychologist's task is gathering as much information about an individual child  as possible. So they would begin by taking quite a detailed history from the parent. They want to know how a child has progressed through all of the developmental milestones, walking and talking for example, and then find out when things changed. Often it is about a parent being tuned in to their child's behaviour and noticing that actually something is not progressing in the way they expected.

They would then go into the nursery or school environment and do a very basic observation where they will look at a child's interactions with other children, levels of language, and how they are generally - if they are confident, if they are lacking confidence, what things may trigger a change in behaviour. Often you can see a child in an environment behaving calmly, until they need to sit down and begin to do a task and you realise it is at that point that they really struggle.

Lastly, is a consultation with the class teacher and the staff working with the child to get a broader sense of what the child is like in school.

3. What are the causes of SEN in children?

SEN covers so many things, it is impossible to define one particular cause, there are a wide range of causes which can often be very individual. What we need to remember is that learning doesn't follow a nice neat line. Often children can come up against learning difficulties for a number of reasons, lack of confidence, not being taught, not understanding the processes that get them from A to B.  

• Literacy and numeracy difficulties seem to come from a place which is about understanding and needs a specific sort of teaching to get them up to speed.
• Behaviour difficulties seem to come from so many places, it can about early experiences from a young childhood, or some really quite awful experiences at school. With these children the ordinary limits that children have placed on them have not had as much of an impact. There is something about them which means they find it really hard to settle down.
• Then there are children who have developmental needs, they might have early speech and language delays for example which means their development is going to be much slower than other children.

4. What is the difference between an SEN child or a child who just acts-out?

There have always been children who have found it hard to settle and manage their behaviour in class. I work in a very specialist area with children who have come in with significant behavioural difficulties, and over the last eight years that I have been working with this population specifically, the acting-out in more aggressive behaviour is more evident in the children that come to see me.

For many teachers the pressures and demands of teaching has become so great that it has become quite difficult for them to have an approach that can manage and incorporate all the needs of the whole class. There has always been a group of children who are ‘naughtier' or less well-behaved, but I think there is more of a reaction to that now, in that people think they can't cope with this. Actually when I have been involved in working with teachers either one-to-one or in groups, what has been helpful has been to ask them to think what this behaviour is really communicating - rather than just look at it and think that there is nothing they can do to prevent it. We need to be thinking about what these children are saying through this behaviour.  Thinking this way really helps teachers gain confidence and generate coping strategies. We are not talking about chair throwing obviously - but children who throw a bit of a wobbly when they are told they need to go and do their handwriting. Actually if we break it down and think about what triggers the behaviour, what the behaviour is about we can avoid it and prevent future episodes.

During the moment when a child is misbehaving it can be very difficult to think about the communication. I think the media has a lot to do with this. We just hear ‘bad behaviour', but nobody asks ‘what is this ‘bad behaviour' about?' Is the child saying ‘actually I find it really difficult to hold a pencil, or my handwriting isn't as good as the person next to me, my levels of anxiety and stress get so high they have to go somewhere, and they get seen through my behaviour?'. So I think a lot of work needs to be done with parents and teachers to understand what they are trying to communicate when they are behaving in a way we don't want them to.

5. Are there any general things that parents and carers can do at home to support their child if they have SEN?

Parents need to have the confidence of knowing their own children and not get too caught up in making demands on them. Each child develops at different rates and you have got to be able to pace learning at home. It is important to maintain good communication with your child's teacher, because the worst thing that can happen is that parents don't raise their concerns with the school.

Schools should have an open door policy where you can go in and observe your child and discuss your child's needs with teaching staff.  Many of the parents and children I have worked with have become so distressed simply because things have broken down between them and the school. The earlier you can start that conversation with your child's teacher the better, you need to stress clearly that you want your child to be happy, because if they are not happy then they are not going to be able to learn.

It is the teacher's job to keep an eye on the levels of sociability in children, so you need to ask about whether they have friends and a group of people they can rely on. Then you will be ready to talk about learning - more formal learning. You have to decide as a parent, what are the bits which are important to you. The thing to ask is if there are any problems - if their learning is not progressing in the way they expected them to at this stage. Learning doesn't belong in any one place. Just because we hand over our children to schools for six hours a day I don't see them as being the only people who can make shifts in a child's development.

It is about having a relationship with your children's school and teacher that they can see and understand. You are well within your rights to walk into your child's school and ask for advice and information because your kids get one shot at school, and if there is no communication, then your child will not progress. It is very difficult because teachers may say things about your child that is hugely general, and as a parent you need to question everything to ensure you fully understand. You should also discuss your child's behaviour in school compared to their behaviour at home if you feel that the teacher is painting a very different picture of your child.

Remember to take notes when you chat with the teacher, it may raise further questions. Communication with parents and teachers is vital. Most parents' concerns and worries are about how happy their child is and that's schools should be helping with because if they happy everything else will follow.