Meeting to develop an evaluation plan

CaffeineHag

New Member
Hi There,

I am new. My difficult child is 7, and in the first grade. After fighting with my son's school for 2 years, they are finally going to evaluate him for an emotional disability. The meeting is this week, and I could use some suggestions on what tests I should ask for. I want the tests to be comprehensive, as we do not know what his "disability" is; although, we suspect that he may have a pervasive developmental disorder. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thank You!
 

JJJ

Active Member
My son was just diagnosis with Autism. The main tests they did were the Autism Diagnosis Interview, the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale and the Gilliam Aspergers Diagnostic Scale. They also tested his expressive and receptive language skills, the Connor's Rating Scale, and an abbreviated IQ test. All of the rating scales are pretty straight forward - based on the score, he will be rated as "not likely" "possibly" "probably" or "highly probable" to have Autism. The Autism Diagnostic Interview requires someone trained on how to administer it to you and your child -- unlikely that the school has someone trained on this test. I'd suggest you ask the school to do an abbreviated IQ test just to get the general idea of IQ-level. A long, complex test will likely frustrate him and therefore not be very accurate anyway.

Good Luck!
 

CaffeineHag

New Member
Thanks JJJ for your response. Are the tests that you described, with the exception on the IQ test, used to determine a medical diagnosis? I told the school psychologist that we suspected asperger's, and she said that they don't test for medical disabilities. From my understanding, the evaluation determines if he needs special academic services, but does not determine what his disability is. I am not sure what I am doing, and wanted to make sure that I consent to the right tests.
 

JJJ

Active Member
You will not be asked to consent to specific tests. You will be asked to consent to testing of suspected areas of disability (i.e Does difficult child have a language problem that is having a negative educational impact?) Then each area of concern is assigned to a school staff member to test and they choose which specific tests will be administered.

Our school will give the Aspergers screening tests. They call it an "educational diagnosis" to differentiate from the medical diagnosis you would get from a specialist. Where do you live? There are Autism Centers all over the country that can do a much better job of testing than a school can.

But if the goal is to get services, you need to be able to identify all of the areas of suspected disability so they can be tested.
 

jcox

New Member
I would request testing in the areas of educational, psychological, functional behavioral analysis if he has behavior issues that interfere with his education, Occupational Therapist (OT) or PT for sensory integration because many of our children have sensory issues (Usually Occupational Therapist (OT) does SI testing and help, but in my school district PT does), if you or any of his providers have concerns with speech or PT I would request testing in those areas as well. Sometimes it is best to request testing in all areas.
 
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