Evaluation

A co-worker is looking to have her son fully evaluated for learning disabilities. Where would she start? She is considering pursuing a private evaluation in addition to the school evals. Is that a good idea?

Re: Evaluation

The school dictricts Evals should be sufficient. I wouldnt put a child through unnecessary testing. Plus bet practice is to only use a standardize test once in a year long (sometimes 6 month) period so the outside evaluator would have to use different testing tools than the district.

Re: Evaluation

First she would ask the school to conduct a full edu-psych eval. Have her request this eval in writing. She can drop off the request, (dated that it was received). After the results are presented, she can 'disagree' with them, and request an IEE (independent educational eval) done with a neuro psychologist. I would select a neuro psych that is an advocate for children and knows how to write strong reports. There are quite a few that are recommended.

I am not sure what type of learning disability she believes her child has, but if it's related to auditory processing disorder, she should also request an independent educ eval done with an audiologist. Dr. Donna Geffner is very well known, but there are others.

Independent Evals do not have to be followed by school districts but some are pretty difficult to argue with.

In addition, she can also request an assisitive tech evaluation.