HomeNeuropsychologyChildren: learning and attention
Your child is struggling at school, in a language you cannot help with.
Attention, learning and development. Always in person, at your home in Granada, with the interview and the report in English.
How it works
- The interview with you. What you see at home, what the school has said, how the move and the languages have gone. In English, for as long as it takes.
- The session with your child. Standardised tests, in person, in whichever language your child is strongest in, chosen for what has to be looked at. To a child they mostly feel like puzzles and games.
- Reading the results properly. Results compared with the norms for their age and read with the bilingual picture in mind: a child taught in a second language will look different on some tests, and that has to be accounted for rather than diagnosed.
- The report and what to do with it. A written report in English or Spanish, a conversation where I explain it, and concrete recommendations for the school and for home.
Two languages, a new school, and no way to tell what is what
A child who moves country will often go quiet, fall behind, or turn tired and irritable for a while. Most of that settles. The difficulty is that a genuine attention or learning difficulty looks almost identical from the outside during exactly that period, so families are told to wait — and sometimes they wait a year too long.
The Spanish school system will not necessarily flag it, and if it does, it will do so in a meeting held in Spanish about a child you know better than anyone else in the room. Plenty of parents come out of that meeting more confused than they went in.
Looking at it properly separates the strands: what is bilingualism, what is the upheaval of the move, and what is a way of learning or attending that needs support. Whichever it turns out to be, you end up with something in writing that a school here — or the next school, in the next country — can act on.
What you get out of it
Not a label. An explanation you can use, and a document you can hand to a school.
- You know which parts are hard for your child and which are strong, instead of a single verdict about whether they are 'bright'.
- You can tell the school what helps, with a written report behind it rather than a parent's impression.
- Your child stops carrying an explanation they invented themselves, which is almost always that they are stupid or lazy.
- If you move again, the report travels with you and the next school does not start from zero.
Who it is for
If your child is falling behind, cannot sit still, or has stopped wanting to go to school, and you cannot tell how much is the move, how much is the language, and how much is something that needs looking at.
- Attention, memory, language, reading and writing, and how each of them is working.
- What is the effect of learning in a second language and what is not.
- A written report you can hand to the school here, or to a school in the next country.
Who it is not for
It is not a label handed out on the day, and it is not therapy for your child: it is the step that tells you whether therapy, school support, or simply time is what is needed. It cannot be done by video call.
When it makes sense to get in touch. When the school has raised something; when homework has become a nightly fight; when your child has started saying they are stupid; or when you are about to move again and want to know what to hand to the next school.
The first consultation is free. It is there for you to tell me what is going on and for me to see whether I can help, with no obligation to continue.Book the free consultation →
Frequently asked questions
Where does the assessment with my child take place?
Always in person, at your home in Granada. The tests need physical material and direct observation, so this part is never done by video call.
Could this simply be because my child is learning in a second language?
It might be, and finding that out is part of the point. Tests are chosen and interpreted with the bilingual picture in mind, and where language affects a result I say so in the report rather than presenting it as a deficit.
Which language will my child be tested in?
Whichever one they are strongest in. Testing a child in their weaker language measures the language rather than the thing we are trying to see. The parts with you — the interview, the feedback session and the report — are in English.
Will the school here take any notice of a private report?
Schools vary. What the report gives you is a clear, standard document setting out what was looked at and what was found, plus specific recommendations, which is a far stronger position to walk into a meeting with than a description of what you have noticed at home.
Does it have to happen at home? My child gets anxious with new people.
Home is usually the easier option rather than the harder one: familiar surroundings and no waiting room. We plan the sessions around when your child is at their best, and split them across days if that works better.
Can both parents take part, including one who does not speak Spanish?
Yes. The interview and the feedback session can be held entirely in English, and it is genuinely useful to have both of you there: you notice different things.
What is the first consultation like?
The first consultation —the initial conversation, not the assessment— is free and we do it by phone or by video call. It is there for us to meet, put some order on what is going on and see whether an assessment is what you need. You do not need to arrive with an answer.