Written answers

Thursday, 28 June 2007

Department of Education and Science

Psychological Service

5:00 pm

Photo of John CreganJohn Cregan (Limerick West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 196: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the situation in relation to services for children to be assessed for dyslexia; if the process, procedure and waiting lists can be outlined; if assistance or supports are available or can be introduced for parents who arrange for and pay for private assessments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18344/07]

Photo of Mary HanafinMary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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All primary and post primary schools have access to psychological assessments either directly through my Department's National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) or through the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA) that is administered by NEPS and full details of which are available on my Department's website.

NEPS does not keep waiting lists for assessments of children but in common with other psychological services encourages a staged assessment process, whereby each school takes responsibility for initial assessment, educational planning and remedial intervention, in consultation with their assigned NEPS psychologist. Only if there is a failure to make reasonable progress in spite of the school's best efforts, will a child be referred for individual psychological assessment. This system allows the psychologists to give early attention to urgent cases and also to help many more children indirectly than could be seen individually.

The introduction of the General Allocation model to primary schools in 2005, schools have an allocation of additional teaching time in order to assess and intervene where necessary with pupils with reading difficulties and/or dyslexia without the need for a psychological educational assessment. In cases where a pupil continues to present with significant difficulties after a number of interventions and reviews, the principal of the pupil's school can prioritise him/her for psychological assessment with the school's allocated NEPS psychologist. Parents of pupils with particular issues in this regard should make contact, in the first instance, with the Principal of the relevant school.

Schools that do not currently have NEPS psychologists assigned to them may avail of the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA), full details of which are available on the Department's website. Through the SCPA the school can have an assessment carried out by a member of the panel of private psychologists approved by NEPS and NEPS will pay the psychologist the fees for this assessment directly. The prioritisation of urgent cases for assessment is a matter for the school principal of the school in the first instance.

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