Developmental Screening in the Native Language (with consultation)

The goal of the screening is to determine an appropriate school placement and the necessity for remedial or supportive services in school for your internationally adopted child. In order to do this, we have to evaluate your child's cognitive and language functioning and current academic skills or pre-academic readiness. The screening is done in the native language of a child, while this language is fully functional.

To collect information needed to achieve the above goals, the following tests and clinical procedures are used:

• A Brief Mental Status Examination and clinical interview with the child
• The Bender VMG Test (a standardized test) and a sample of writing/drawing to estimate visual processing, visual-motor integration, and grapho-motor skills
• The Bilingual Verbal Ability Test (a standardized test for cognitive language)
• The Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (a standardized general intelligence test where no expressive or receptive language is needed)
• An informal evaluation of the articulation and communicative fluency/pragmatics as well as reasoning and comprehension in the Russian language
• An estimation of academic skills according to the current Russian curriculum for the child's chronological age
• The Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement lll, four subtests: Calculation, Math Fluency, Quantitative Concepts, and Applied Problems administered in Russian
• The Brigance Inventory of Early Development (a criterion-referenced inventory of pre-academic skills)
• A review and interpretation of available documentation from a native country

Depending on the child's age, the evaluation may take from 4 to 6 hours and is usually completed in one session. As a general rule, one to two hours are needed to score and interpret the findings and write a summary. The follow-up consultation consists of an oral presentation of the results and a discussion of recommendations spelled out in the summary. You will be provided with a written consultation summary.

Please be aware of certain limitations of this consultation particularly in respect to long-term emotional/behavioral issues (e.g.: attachment). Some of your questions and concerns can be addressed only by a full-fledged examination. The necessity for such an examination will be determined during this consultation.

845-694-8496
systemadministrator@bgcenter.com