ABSTRACT
Psychologists do not often assess children in care unless a court report is needed or a child is admitted to an assessment centre, often after a family crisis or a foster breakdown. This chapter describes the unusual experience of being the educational psychologist attached to several children’s homes in a London borough. The low self-esteem of these children has been described already. What became evident was that teachers, care staff and social workers often shared these low expectations of the children and this seemed to account for their failure to refer them for any kind of special help. The experiences and feelings which many of these children have had to contend with have a serious impact on their capacity to think and to learn. When assessing young children predictions about their future learning are always made with caution; with deprived children their inevitable restlessness and limited verbal skills simply confirm objectively the consequences of their impoverished and confused early experiences.
