What Parents Should Know About Evaluation for Special Education Services

The Purpose of Evaluation:

Many children have trouble in school. Others have a hard time remembering new information. Still others may have trouble behaving themselves. Children can have all sorts of problems. It’s important to find out why a child is not doing well in school. The child may have a disability.  By law, schools must provide special help to eligible children with disabilities.  This help is called special education and related Services.

You may ask the school to evaluate your child, or the school may ask you for permission to do an evaluation. If the school thinks your child may have a disability and may need special education and related services, the school must evaluate your child before providing your child with these services. This evaluation is at no cost to you.

Once you give your informed written permission for the evaluation, the school has 60

days to evaluate your child. (If your state has set its own timeframe for conducting evaluations, then the school will follow the state’s timeframe.) The evaluation will tell you and the school:

• if your child has a disability; and
• what kind of special help your child needs in

        school

Step 1: Using What Is Known

A team of people, including you, will be involved in evaluating your child. This team will

begin by looking at what is already known about your child. The team will look at your child’s school file and recent test scores. You and your child’s teacher(s) may provide information to be included in this review.

The evaluation team needs enough information to decide if your child has a disability. It also needs to know what kind of special help your child needs. Is there enough information about your child to answer these questions? If your child is being evaluated for the first time, maybe not.

Step 2: Collecting More Information

The team of people involved in your child’s evaluation, including you, will identify what additional information about your child is needed in order to answer the questions we just mentioned. Before the school may conduct additional testing to collect that information, school personnel must ask you for permission. They must explain to you what the evaluation of your child will involve. This includes describing (a) the tests they will use with your child, and (b) the other ways they will collect information about your child.

The school will collect the additional information about your child in many different ways and from many different people, including you. (The people who will be involved in your child’s evaluation are listed in the box to the right.) Tests are an important part of an evaluation, but they are only one part. The evaluation should also include: 

• the observations and opinions of professionals who have worked with your child;
• your child’s medical history, when it’s relevant to his or her performance in school; and
• your observations about your child’s experiences, abilities, needs, and behavior in school and outside of school, and his or her feelings about school.

Professionals will observe your child. They may give your child tests. They are trying to get a picture of the “whole child.” It’s important that the school evaluate your child in all areas where he or she might have a disability. For example, they will want to know more about:

• how well your child speaks and understands language;
• how your child thinks and behaves;
• how well your child adapts to change; and
• what your child has achieved in school.

Step 3: Deciding if Your Child is Eligible for Special Education

The next step is to decide if your child is eligible for special education and related services. This decision will be based on the results of your child’s evaluation and the policies in your area about eligibility for these special services.

It’s important that your child’s evaluation results be explained to you in a way that’s easy to understand.  The school will discuss your child’s scores on tests and what they mean. Is your child doing as well as other children his or her age? What does your child do well? Where is your child having trouble? What is causing the trouble?  If you don’t understand something in your child’s evaluation results, be sure to speak up and ask questions. This is your child. You know your child very well. Do the results make sense, considering what you know about your child? Share your special insights. Your knowledge of your child is important.

Based on your child’s evaluation results, a group of people will decide if your child is eligible for special education and related services. Under IDEA, you have the right to be part of any group that decides your child’s eligibility for special education and related services.

This decision is based in part on IDEA’s definition of a “child with a disability.” You should know that:

• The IDEA lists 13 different disability categories under which a child may be eligible for services.
• The disability must affect the child’s educational performance. (Your child does not have to be failing school, however, and may be moving from grade to grade.)

As a parent, you have the right to receive a copy of the evaluation report on your child at no cost to you. You also have the right to receive a copy of the paperwork about your child’s eligibility for special education and related services.

If your child is eligible for special education and related services (such as speech therapy) and you agree with this determination, then you and the school will meet and talk about your child’s special educational needs (see Step 4 below). However, you can disagree with decision and refuse special education and related services for your child.

If your child is not eligible for special education and related services, the school must tell you so in writing. You must also receive information about what to do if you disagree with this decision. If this information is not in the materials the school gives you, ask for it. You have the right to disagree with the eligibility decision and be heard. Also ask how

the school will help your child if he or she will not be getting special education services.

Step 4: Developing Your Child’s Educational Program

If, however, If, however, your child is found eligible for special education and related services and you agree, the next step is to write an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for your child. This is a written document that you and school personnel develop

together. The IEP will describe your child’s educational program, including the special services your child will receive.

Excerpted from “Your Child’s Evaluation”, National Dissemination Center for Children With Disabilities (NICHCY), April 2009