Son has a severe memory impairment, trying to get support for him in school

LAkdeniz

Hi everyone, I am looking for some help regarding my son.  He has suffered from poor language skills since nursery and following years of speech therapy and eventually a wisk assessment by child psychology it was confirmed he has a severe memory impairment.  This makes it very difficult for him to retain information and as you can imagine impacts his learning greatly.  In order to ensure he receives as much support and understanding as possible I feel he should be able to say he is disabled to allow for scribing in schools or extra time to complete tasks or eventually exams in high school.  Our GP is of the same opinion as are the school.  However, the psychologist says he doesn’t have a disability and community paediatrics refused the request for an assessment as he has a language disorder not a learning disability.  I am struggling to accept this on behalf of him as he has a life long impairment which has a huge impact on his ability to learn as his peers do.  Does anyone have any advice for me or been in a similar situation? Thanks so much 

JennysDad

Hello @LAkdeniz and a warm welcome to the community. I am very sorry to read of your difficulties (though having worked in school in support of children with learning difficulties I am not at all surprised) and I hope we can come up with something for you. I'm going to tag @ParentingAdvisorVikki and hope she will be in touch with you soon.
Very warmest best wishes to you,
Richard
@JennysDad

LAkdeniz

Hi @JennysDad thank you so much the reply any help would be appreciated as I’ve kind of hit a brick wall and so have the school so we are just managing it as best we can between them and home just now.  Kind regards 

Pippa_Alumni

Hi @LAkdeniz, welcome to the community!

How are you doing, has there been any progress since your first post? I'm tagging in our Speech and Language advisor @NicolaLatheySLT in case there's any guidance she can offer! 

NicolaLatheySLT

Hello, my advice would be to get an educational psychology report which the school SENCo should be able to set out.  If not you can go privately.  If this doesn't work, you could try a charity called 'Educational Equality'. See if they have any advice.  Good luck.  Nicola 

LAkdeniz

Thanks Nicola I will try that route and see how I get on.  Appreciate your advice.

Kind regards
Laura