The difference between Clinical, Counselling and Educational Psychology
The difference between Clinical, Counselling, and Educational Psychology: For most parents, finding a psychologist to send their child to is a pretty daunting task. This is often complicated even further by the lack of knowledge around the different disciplines and the apparent cross over between the services offered by each. Who does what? And how […]
Anel’s top 20 favourite activities to enhance fine motor development
Anel’s top 20 favourite activities to enhance fine motor development Colouring, drawing, cutting and tracing are all wonderful activities to enhance fine motor skills. But many young children, especially boys, find these activities boring and often despise having to spend time sitting still at a desk completing worksheets. There are so many other wonderful and […]
Tactile Defensiveness
Tactile Defensiveness in children Children who suffer from tactile defensiveness are over-sensitive to the feel of different textures. This is thought to be caused by too much sensory stimulation reaching the brain due to poor filtering of sensory information from the environment. Some children might even experience touch as painful and might be easily overwhelmed.
What does an Educational Psychologist do?
The Health Professions Council of South Africa defines the role as follows: An Educational Psychologist assesses, diagnoses and intervenes to facilitate adjustment and development of children and adolescents in the context of family, school, peer groups or communities.
Practicing as an Educational Psychologist in South Africa
The requirements for practicing as a psychologist in South Africa are: A Master’s degree in Psychology a completed internship in the required field of practice successful completion of the board exam set by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). The Professional Board for Psychology of the HPCSA has compiled an Ethical Code of […]
Autistic Spectrum Disorders
The word autism comes from two Greek words: “aut” meaning self and “ism” meaning state. It thus defines a person who is unusually absorbed in himself or herself. The word spectrum indicates that there is a wide variation in autistic behaviour along a continuum ranging from mild to severe. Autistic spectrum disorders are often referred […]
Mathematics disorder (Dyscalculia)
Children with mathematics disorder have difficulty learning and remembering numerals, cannot remember basic facts about numbers and are slow and inaccurate in their calculations. Typically children with mathematics disorder perform poorly in four groups of skills. These are: * Linguistic skills (i.e. skills related to understanding mathematical terms and converting written problems into mathematical symbols) […]
Dyslexia (Reading Disorder)
Dyslexia is typically a developmental reading disability in an otherwise intelligent child (or adult) who is motivated to read and who has had adequate schooling. Dyslexia does not originate from poor language skills, but is a result of a deficiency in the areas of the brain that process the sounds of language (phonemes). Children with […]
Low Muscle Tone (Dyspraxia)
Dyspraxia, commonly referred to as low muscle tone, is an impairment or difficulty in the development of coordinated movement to a degree that interferes with academic performance or daily living. These children are often referred to as being “clumsy”, since they tend to bump into objects or trip over their own feet. What exactly causes dyspraxia is […]
Mixed Receptive / Expressive Language Disordr
Children suffering from this disorder are limited in both understanding and expressing language. These children typically develop language more slowly than their peers and have trouble understanding conversations that their peers can follow. It is believed to occur in about 3% of school-age children and is twice as prevalent in boys as in girls. Children […]
