BY JUDITH CANTY GRAVES AND CARSON GRAVES
Evaluations are a major part of the special education experience. The purpose of evaluations, aside from determining eligibility for special education, is to inform parents, teachers, and other specialists how a student’s disabilities may be affecting his or her ability to learn and interact socially with peers. This information is important in providing a road map for the student’s special education Team to develop an effective Individualized Education Program (IEP). The evaluation process should be an ongoing and interactive experience, with parents and professionals seeking the answers to questions that will benefit the student and provide guidance to the school personnel who work with the student.
Evaluation reports are not always easy to understand, however. When parents are exhausted and grasping for answers, they can read reports with complicated charts, vague statements, and confusing statistics, and still not fully understand their child’s needs. Unless the report clearly describes the meaning of the testing data and includes recommendations that are practical and comprehensive, an evaluation can be unhelpful and possibly even damaging if it misleads parents and teachers as to the true nature of the problems a student faces.
We have read many evaluation reports and seen our share of both good and bad ones. From our experience, we have compiled eight essential elements to review:
1. Personal data
A report should begin by providing information about the student beyond just a name, date of birth, and gender. Why has the student been referred for the evaluation? Are there observed personality traits that make the particular evaluation relevant? Usually this information is supplied through questionnaires filled out by parents and teachers, and can provide important clues about the student to the examiner before the formal testing begins.
We tell parents to be sure that they recognize the child being described in this section and agree with the reasons for the referral. Once we had an evaluation performed by a psychologist working from teacher and parent questionnaires who misinterpreted the answers and created a profile for our son that bore no resemblance to him. The resulting evaluation was invalid and time was wasted while it was done over. Although this is a rare event in our experience, an accurate description of the student is an important first step in any evaluation.
2. Evaluation Goals
An evaluation is performed to answer one or more questions about the student being tested. For an initial eligibility evaluation, one question might be: “Are there cognitive and/or academic weaknesses that would indicate a specific learning disability?” Relevant questions for an educational evaluation might be: “To what degree do the student’s learning problems affect his or her ability to function in school?” and “What are the student’s cognitive and academic developmental levels?” Other types of evaluations should have similar goals specific to the tests being administered.
Whatever the goals, the report should state up front the purpose and reasons for the evaluation as it applies specifically to the student being tested. While this might seem obvious, many reports we have read fail to state their goals in a clear manner, and some don’t state a goal at all. This is unfortunate, since without clearly stated goals, how can parents, or even the examiner, know if the evaluation has achieved its purpose?
3. Review of Existing data
The federal special education law, IDEA, requires that the student’s Team and any qualified examiner review previous relevant evaluations, including those performed by independent evaluators and supplied by the parents. An evaluation report should acknowledge this data and indicate whether the current testing confirms or contradicts the previous data and conclusions.
4. Behavioral observations
An important part of an evaluation is the examiner’s observations of the student both before and during the test. Factors such as appearance and behavior can reflect how engaged a student is and indicate how accurate the results are. Is the student confident and willing to take risks in answering questions, or uninvolved and restless, anxious and hesitant? If the examiner’s observations are that the student is making a sincere effort on the test, that increases the likelihood that the test results are a valid measure of the abilities being assessed.
5. Explain all test scores
The examiner should explain the importance of all the test data clearly and in terms that parents can understand. One school report we read had this to say: “A statistically significant discrepancy is observed between student’s Verbal and Performance Indices, with the Performance Index falling thirty-five points below the Verbal Index.” The report made no further mention of this discrepancy or what it might mean. In another report describing a similar discrepancy, a different examiner wrote: “There remains a statistically significant difference (36 points) between verbal cognitive ability and visual-spatial ability, consistent with the student’s diagnosis of Non-Verbal Learning Disability.” In addition to acknowledging and confirming previous testing data, the second evaluation clearly states the significance of the discrepancy while the first one essentially ignores it.
6. Recommendations
No evaluation is complete without clear, detailed recommendations for the school to implement based on the report’s conclusions. Many states require that school evaluations contain specific recommendations on how to meet the needs of the student. These recommendations are essential to create an effective program for teachers and specialists to follow and should form the basis of a student’s IEP goals.
We have read evaluations that end with a summary but no recommendations on how the school can help the student. Sometimes we have seen only minimal recommendations, such as “additional time on tests,” “counseling,” or “repeat directions.” For students with complex needs, these sorts of recommendations do not contain enough information for the school staff or parents to effectively help the student.
Another practice we have seen is to conclude a report with: “Specific recommendations will be discussed at the Team meeting.” While the Team may discuss recommendations, it is easy to forget or ignore the details of a discussion. Without something in writing, it is almost guaranteed that any verbal recommendations will not be acted upon.
7. Examiner’s signature and credentials
If an examiner believes that the testing and conclusions are valid, it is reasonable to expect that person to certify the validity of the evaluation by signing the written report. A signature is an important indication that the examiner is willing to stand behind its methodology and conclusions.
We have seen evaluation reports that are signed, but do not list the examiner’s credentials or just identify the examiner as a “teacher.” IDEA expects all evaluators to be qualified, and there is no reason why their credentials should not be documented next to their name. Parents, and everyone else who reads and relies on an evaluation, have a right to this information.
8. Clear and understandable language
We have seen examples of reports that appear to be using words in a way that, intentionally or not, obscures the meaning of the evaluation’s findings. While many professions use technical terms that have a meaning specific to that field, such “terms of art” are often confusing to those outside that profession. When writing for the lay public it is the responsibility of the professional to either avoid such jargon or explain it for the uninitiated. If you receive a report with terminology or phrases that you do not fully understand, ask the examiner to rewrite the parts that are not clear to you. We have seen reports that use phrases like “imbalance in functioning” or “processing impairment” without any further explanation of what these phrases meant.
What parents can do
Parents must make the effort to understand the evaluation reports they receive and question any parts that aren’t clear. They should not be afraid to ask for more clarification and rewriting if necessary and should not accept a report that is lacking important information. We tell parents that while they may not have the advanced degrees of the examiner, they are the ones who know their child best and are the ones who need the information in the report to help their child get an appropriate education.•
This article is adapted from Chapter 4, “School Evaluations” in Parents Have the Power to Make Special Education Work by Judith Canty Graves and Carson Graves
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Judith Canty Graves and Carson Graves are parents who spent 15 years in the special education system trying to obtain an appropriate education for their son. Through trial and error, success and failure, they learned what it takes to navigate the bureaucratic maze and the often hidden agenda of school culture so that their son could receive the education he was entitled to by law. Writing as parents for other parents, the results of their journey led to the publication of Parents Have the Power to Make Special Education Work, an acclaimed parent manual published in 2014 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Their website is www.MakeSpecialEducationWork.com and their Facebook
page is www.Facebook.com/MakeSpecialEducationWork
HERE IS OUR LIST OF SUGGESTIONS FOR PARENTS WHEN THEY ASK FOR AN EVALUATION
1. Provide the school with a written list of all the disabilities you suspect and want to have assessed. Schools are required to perform the appropriate assessments and the resulting reports should clearly state whether or not there is a diagnosis of a disability in each of these areas.
2. Learn how to interpret test scores so that you have an accurate picture of your child without the filter of the examiner’s conclusions influencing you. If you do not feel comfortable interpreting test data, consider hiring an experienced advocate to read the report and help you understand what the data means. If the report’s conclusions and the data match up, that is an important clue that the evaluation is providing an accurate picture of your child.
3. Make sure that the report identifies the specific disability if the testing data indicates that one exists. Question vague labels like “relative weakness,” “imbalance in functioning,” or “processing impairment.” Terms like these aren’t defined in special education law as a disability and can make it harder to get appropriate services for a child. If
a school evaluation does not clearly diagnose a disability (or the lack of one), then request additional testing.
4. Make sure that evaluation reports conclude with specific, detailed recommendations. They should be prioritized in importance and provide meaningful direction for teachers and other school personnel. The recommendations should specify needed services or even the type of placement, not just classroom accommodations.
5. Make sure that all important testing data and recommendations from prior evaluations are included in your child’s IEP. If the results and recommendations of an evaluation are not written into the IEP, then they probably won’t be seen by teachers and they won’t help your child.
6. Do not accept a report that is not signed by the examiner or does not indicate that the examiner is qualified to perform the evaluation.
7. Consider having an independent educational evaluation (IEE) performed if you disagree with the school’s evaluation. Parents can have an IEE done at private expense at any time. We advise parents to know their rights under IDEA and their state regulations regarding an IEE done at public expense.
