Did this really qualify as a substantial SD evaluation?

[jal]

I know I posted a question on what to expect, but does this original "observation" seem appropriate for determining Special Education qualification?

I was reading one of the posted links http://www.parentcenterhub.org/resources/ evaluations for special education. The document talks about testing and having medical professionals involved. We had an "evaluation" done in Sept 06. The only people involved were the school social worker, 2 Special Education teachers and the school Occupational Therapist (OT). The social worker took developmental history from us, the Occupational Therapist (OT) had us fill out a sensory profile and the Special Education teacher, who is an Speech Language Pathologist (SLP), had us fill out a Batelle Development history. So they only looked at structured development, Battelle development, sensory and what they call a "multi disciplinary evaluation" in social interaction and play skills by the whole group. The latter was a 45 min. observation in his preschool teachers home, done a month after were completed the other info and after his trail on Ritalin LA which helped some. Of course, throw in a little Ritalin and he doesn't qualify.

Now that we have a new meeting this week and a different diagnosis should I push for outside/medical testing?

 

[Sheila]

In order to see whether anything other than evaluation via screens and other informal means were used, you'd have to read the evaluation report. There should be some normed testing involved. Do you have a copy of it?

Evaluating your child means more than the school just giving your child a test or two. The school must evaluate your child in all the areas where your child may be affected by the possible disability. This may include looking at your child's health, vision, hearing, social and emotional well-being, general intelligence, performance in school, and how well your child communicates with others and uses his or her body. The evaluation must be complete enough (full and individual) to identify all of your child's needs for special education and related services.

The statement above sums up the regs well.

From http://idea.ed.gov/explore/view/p/,root,regs,300,D,300%2E304, , the regs state:

Sec. 300.304 Evaluation procedures.

(a) Notice. The public agency must provide notice to the parents of a child with a disability, in accordance with Sec. 300.503, that describes any evaluation procedures the agency proposes to conduct.

(b) Conduct of evaluation. In conducting the evaluation, the public agency must--

(1) Use a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information about the child, including information provided by the parent, that may assist in determining--

(i) Whether the child is a child with a disability under Sec. 300.8; and

(ii) The content of the child's IEP, including information related to enabling the child to be involved in and progress in the general education curriculum (or for a preschool child, to participate in appropriate activities);

(2) Not use any single measure or assessment as the sole criterion for determining whether a child is a child with a disability and for determining an appropriate educational program for the child; and

(3) Use technically sound instruments that may assess the relative contribution of cognitive and behavioral factors, in addition to physical or developmental factors.

(c) Other evaluation procedures. Each public agency must ensure that--

(1) Assessments and other evaluation materials used to assess a child under this part--

(i) Are selected and administered so as not to be discriminatory on a racial or cultural basis;

(ii) Are provided and administered in the child's native language or other mode of communication and in the form most likely to yield accurate information on what the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally, unless it is clearly not feasible to so provide or administer;

(iii) Are used for the purposes for which the assessments or measures are valid and reliable;

(iv) Are administered by trained and knowledgeable personnel; and

(v) Are administered in accordance with any instructions provided by the producer of the assessments.

(2) Assessments and other evaluation materials include those tailored to assess specific areas of educational need and not merely those that are designed to provide a single general intelligence quotient.

(3) Assessments are selected and administered so as best to ensure that if an assessment is administered to a child with impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills, the assessment results accurately reflect the child's aptitude or achievement level or whatever other factors the test purports to measure, rather than reflecting the child's impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills (unless those skills are the factors that the test purports to measure).

(4) The child is assessed in all areas related to the suspected disability, including, if appropriate, health, vision, hearing, social and emotional status, general intelligence, academic performance, communicative status, and motor abilities;

(5) Assessments of children with disabilities who transfer from one public agency to another public agency in the same school year are coordinated with those children's prior and subsequent schools, as necessary and as expeditiously as possible, consistent with Sec. 300.301(d)(2) and (e), to ensure prompt completion of full evaluations.

(6) In evaluating each child with a disability under Sec. Sec. 300.304 through 300.306, the evaluation is sufficiently comprehensive to identify all of the child's special education and related services needs, whether or not commonly linked to the disability category in which the child has been classified.

(7) Assessment tools and strategies that provide relevant information that directly assists persons in determining the educational needs of the child are provided.

(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1414(b)(1)-(3), 1412(a)(6)(B))

 

[jal]

Sheila,

I have the reports from our PPT meeting and basically what I have is a rehash of the developmental history I gave the SW, interpretation of scores on Batelle questionaire, sensory profile scores and observations from a 55 min observation. They did no testing on him alone. I guess I am just trying to determine if they left out additional testing so I can request it when I go on Friday.

Thank you.

 

[Sheila]

It's hard to say without knowing the background information of what caused the evaluation to be done to begin with and without knowing whether the testing done were screens, full batteries, based strictly on observation, etc. Also, I'm not familiar with the Batelle, sensory profile. Was any type of educational testing in these tests?

School districts are only required to test in "suspected" areas of disability. With your child's dxs, I'm wondering why they didn't do a psychiatric evaluation.

With the new IDEA 2004, a parent can only request this type testing once a year.

When parents do not agree with the school district's evaluation, they can request an IEE (Independent Education Evaluation). It's at no cost to the parent. The IEE must meet the same criteria as the sd's, but the evaluator(s) are chosen by the parent. This request must be made in writing, via Certified Mail and sent to the attention of the Special Education Director of the school District.

If you decide to request an IEE, there are sample letters in the Archives. There's also additional info on IEEs in the Archives.