Thursday, February 4th

Another day and time to get some work done. I get into work, grab a WAIS-IV and head off to the high school to test a student. I get over there and can't find a place to test so I find the student and bring him back to my office which is a block away.

The student has been classified as communication impaired but there isn't any recent speech information. I had been wrestling with the idea of using the Wechsler Non-Verbal but since I didn't know the results of any recent speech evaluation I figured I should stick with the WAIS. But the fates intervene and I run into the speech person assigned to do the eval. She informs me that the student still qualifies for communication impaired and tells me the preliminary results of her evaluation.

I decide to do the WNV since his impairment in the areas of speech and language would skew his verbal comprehension score and thus his overall full scale scores. The student is very interesting and artistic. I have to say that the student provided me with one of the best human figure drawings I have ever seen. This is the only student that has ever drawn a human figure drawing using formal sketching techniques.

After completing the evaluation, I meet with a student who recently lost a parent to a sudden illness. Very sudden and unexpected. There was really not much else to do other than offer the student an opportunity to talk and let 'em know that I was available if they wanted to talk.

I return to my office and begin to work on a the psychological evaluation I just completed. I amaze myself by finishing the report in a little over an hour. Just in time to go to an eligibility conference.

The eligibility conference takes a turn for the surreal. I was only supposed to interpret my psychological evaluation but the case manager gets called away for a sudden...something and I'm left running the meeting. I don't begrudge the case manager, it was just weird. In addition to this, the parent was 30 minutes late and the meeting had to be conducted in Spanish. I get through the meeting and return to the office for lunch.

Shortly after this, I find the psychiatrist that is visiting to do psychiatric evaluations today. He is seeing one of my students in the afternoon. This psychiatrist is really good. He is old school psychiatrist. He actually knows how to conduct projective testing. Several teachers that know the student come over and meet with the psychiatrist as well. It is almost time for me to leave so I head for home after I get the student and the doctor situated.

One more day before the weekend. Tomorrow, I have to test another student and meet with a new student that just moved into the district.