[roselee]

Most of you seem very aware about IQ scores!!

I am a school psychologist and actually do testing, write up the reports and dx children. Yes, an IQ below 70 is considered to be in the "Mild Mental Retarted range," "Mildly Deficient range," or have a "Cognitive Disability," depending on the state you live in. However, an IQ alone does not determine this label. An indivdual also has to score low on adaptive skills: communication, social skills, daily living skills, etc. That score has to be below 70 as well.

What everyone has stated - YES it is EXTREMELY difficult to label a child who has a history of physical abuse and/or neglect. These children's adaptive skills are likely to be low because of past situations, and the IQ test can be extremely variable for these children more than most depending on the medication, motivation, rapport with the person giving the test (attachment, control or defiance issues), anxiety, etc. These children have much more of the above symptoms then the average child. The only way to determine if the test is accurate is to see what the child's score is after a few years. The difference between 72 and 76 is really not signficant - their are confidence intervals that take into account a child's worst and best day (sorry if that's difficult to understand - the school can actually lay it out for you).

The biggest question for me in my role assessing a foster or adopted child would be the child's educational background. If the child has not had an adequate education at all (moved around a lot, been out of school for a long period of time, etc), then the child really can't be considered for special education because you can't rule out the cause of the problems are not related to educational deprivation (not attending school, frequent school moves, etc). This is a federal law under Individuals with disabilities act and is clearly stated.

However, we (the school team) have gotten around some of those cases in creative ways because we knew the child just wouldn't make it without special ed services. After all, it's not the child's fault s/he is low or struggling.