FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
- What is an independent evaluation? According to federal and state law, a student who is enrolled in special education is entitled at public expense to an independent evaluation or evaluations of the type administered by the school district, if the parents or guardians disagree with the results, unless the district initiates a hearing. The parents or guardians need to send a written request (use certified mail) to the director of special education specifying which evaluations they want conducted independently (e.g., educational, psychological, speech and language). An independent evaluation must be conducted by a qualified examiner who is not an employee of the student's school district.
- Am I required to use an independent evaluator chosen by the school district? The school district has to provide parents with a list of qualified examiners upon request. However, you are not required to choose one of them.
- My school district says that I have to pick one of the names on its list. What can I do? Contact the Special Education office of your state Department of Education.
- My school district says that before I can have the independent evaluation performed I have to explain to the Team why I disagree with its results. Is this true? A school district may certainly make such a request, but you are under no legal obligation to comply. If they persist, you might want to contact the Special Education office of your state Department of Education.
- How long does it take you to conduct an independent educational evaluation? It takes approximately four hours, with a lunch break in the middle. However, this varies among children; some take longer to test than others for various reasons. Some children provide inconsistent results and additional tests are needed to clarify the data. Some children need more time to process their thoughts. Some write slowly. Some have gaps in their knowledge so that testing must continue to higher levels, which takes time. Actually, the evaluation time ranges from three to as much as five hours. Breaks are given as needed to sustain attention. The essential point to remember is that we need to be sure afterwards that the evaluation has shown us your child's very best performance.
- What is the difference between an educational and a psychoeducational evaluation? A psychoeducational evaluation is conducted by one person, usually a psychologist, who does both the intellectual and educational testing. An educational evaluation is conducted by an educator who works with a psychologist so that your child's achievement is evaluated in terms of his or her potential. Not only does this make sense, but it is the law that both educational and psychological testing be conducted so that achievement can be compared to potential. The psychological and educational evaluators should work together as a team to coordinate their results for you. Although having a psychoeducational evaluation that only involves one professional may be easier for you, it can be extremely advantageous to have the insights of two professionals who have spent considerable time with your child. Often one notices something that the other misses or did not experience. Moreover, this team approach provides separate in-depth evaluation reports from people with expertise in their particular fields.
- Why does my child need to see a psychologist at all? There are no emotional problems. As previously stated, children's academic achievement and intellectual potential need to be compared to determine how well we can expect them to be performing in school. In addition, the intellectual testing provides a lot of information about the child's approaches to tasks, his or her memory, attention and concentration, organizational skills, visual perception, fine motor skills, and spatial abilities, to name only a few areas.
- What are the goals of the psychological and educational evaluations? There should not be any preconceived ideas about the findings before beginning the evaluation. The purpose of the testing should be to look for educational and intellectual strengths and areas of need.
- What should the evaluator do before testing? Before the testing even begins, the evaluator needs to gain as much information as possible about the child from his parents, from his teachers, and even directly from the child. Questionnaires can be sent to the parents and school and these are often followed up with clinical interviews. Because the information provided is subjective, it will sometimes be biased. Even so, it can provide valuable clues. Later, the evaluator will need to decide which data converge and which seem to resonate with her knowledge of the child even though it was only reported by one source. Unfortunately, it is impossible to test everything. Because no evaluation can be truly comprehensive, decisions need to be made about what areas should be assessed and how. It needs to be kept in mind that at best a good evaluation has the power to change a child's life.
- What should the evaluator do during testing? The educational evaluator needs to assess the primary academic areas: the various components of reading, spelling, written language, oral language, and mathematics. For children with poor literacy skills, prereading and math readiness skills need to be looked at as well. It is essential that the evaluator select tests that are current, statistically valid, and statistically reliable. During testing, the evaluator is looking for the child's strengths and areas of need; however, she is also watching to see how the student approaches a task, the strategies that are used, and the coping mechanisms that are employed during stressful periods. Throughout the session, the evaluator engages the child in formal and informal conversation, discusses school and his or her attitude about various subjects, and after testing often asks why particular items were answered in a certain way.
- What should the evaluator do after the testing? The first thing the evaluator does is to score the tests to determine the results. However the results are studied for both their quantitative value (how well the child compares to his or her age group and potential) and their qualitative value. Why was a particular area of reading difficult? What unknown areas of math are preventing the youngster from progressing? Are language processing, attentional, or fine motor problems, for example, interfering with the acquisition of skills? Moreover, she needs to combine the test results with the other information she previously gathered about the child because there is more to a person than test results. Finally, are there additional areas that need to be evaluated to complete the picture of this child? Does a neurologist need to be seen? A language and speech pathologist? An occupational therapist?
- What should be done with the information from the evaluation? A report is written of the evaluation results, complete with detailed recommendations for placement, instruction, and classroom accommodations and modifications. The report is given to the parents and its results discussed with them. If the school is paying for the evaluation, it is also entitled to a copy of the report. Because the hierarchy of a school can be intimidating, many parents do not realize just how much power they have. The federal and state laws actually provide them with many safeguards to protect their children. Schools, on the other hand, are generally well-meaning and caring, but they are also filled with busy and overworked people. Parents are the child's first and often best advocates and the independent evaluation can serve them well if it is well-written and if the recommendations are clearly stated. The best solution to dealing with a learning disabled child is a collaborative process that includes the school, the parents, and when needed the independent evaluator(s).