“So, you are not an Educational Psychologist?” Many times, I have been confronted with this question and found myself at a loss for words. After all, when I was at UBC as a Ph.D. student, everybody seemed to understand what I was doing.  Who cared as long as the research question was interesting and I was OK with the statistical analyses!

Out here in the “real” world, “end users” such as parents and educators are concerned about “funding” and “labeling.” If there is a name for the problem, there is the possibility for accessing “funding” and getting additional educational support for the child. I can’t blame them for being practical and so, I’ve decided to try and make myself useful by doing a little “Adult Education” here.

Here is a simple “memory aid” for all you confused folks: ☺

1. Educational Psychologists are supposed to be “experts” in testing. They know what tests screen what. They test everything from “depression” to “dyslexia”.
2. Dr. Winnifred Tang, yours truly, has a Ph.D. from UBC in Special Education dealing with learning disabilities. Her doctoral research examined the cognitive profiles of learning disabled children from an ESL (English as a Second Language) background. These are the children with reading disability (dyslexia) and arithmetic disability (dyscalculia).

Simply put: the Educational Psychologists find the problem and I fix it.  That is, if it belongs to my area of specialty, which is dyslexia and language-based learning disabilities.

Dyslexia and dyscalculia are terms used by researchers, academics, and the medical professionals. Educators like to use a broad term, “learning disability”, to describe a range of learning problems ranging from poor reading to poor calculation skills. Note that a learning disability refers only to academic-related skills in the language and numerical domain. A child who cannot do gymnastics is not “learning disabled” nor is the child who cannot sing and dance.

Do I know how to diagnose dyslexia? Of course I can! This is what I was trained to do. And not only that, I can fix the learning problem through educational intervention. Hence my background in Language Education-my master’s research dealt with reading acquisition and the development of writing skills in ESL students- and my interest in using technology in education come in handy.

The disclaimer I have to make here is this: I only diagnose dyslexia and related learning disabilities and I set certain boundaries in my private practice. For example, autism and ADHD are two areas which I am hesitant to venture into and I would accept dyslexia cases with these accompanying co-morbidities on a case-to-case basis.  Also, I diagnose by clinical observation and criterion-based tests. For parents requiring “a piece of paper” with an Educational Psychologist’s signature on it so that they can access services from the school,  I am not the person to see. However, for parents interested in “fixing” the problem, regardless of who pays for what, I may be the person of interest to them.

Now that I have cleared the air, I look forward to working with my colleagues in the school system to help dyslexic children ridden with language-based learning problems to receive timely and appropriate educational support.

Tags: Dyslexia diagnosis
Posted in Blog