Medical-legal assessments - the educational implications, working with educational psychologists

摘要

The President: Hilary Dinham is going to talk to us about her work as an Educational Psychologist in medico-legal cases. Before becoming an educational psychologist, Hilary worked as a social worker, auxiliary nurse, researcher and teacher. Then she worked for 19 years for local education authorities as an educational psychologist, with a special interest in language disorders and autism. For the last 20 years she has been self-employed and she splits her time between her medico-legal work and advising parents concerned about their children's educational progress. So welcome Hilary, and thank you for coming tonight to talk to us. This slide gives an overview of my talk this evening. Firstly, I am going to give some pointers on which psychologist to consider instructing or recommending in the case of physicians. I wiil then cover aspects of psychological assessment before looking at what educational psychologists can offer. This includes an example of the possible effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on learning and how an educational psychologist may advise, leading on to some discussion of special educational needs (SEN) and working with schools.