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Timeframe for Initial Evaluation

Review Existing Data --

Evaluation (and particularly reevaluation) typically begins with a review of existing evaluation data on the child, which may come from the child’s classroom work, his or her performance on State or district assessments, information provided by the parents, and so on.

The purpose of this review is to decide if the existing data is sufficient to establish the child’s eligibility and determine educational needs, or if additional information is needed. If the group determines there is sufficient information available to make the necessary determinations, the public agency must notify parents:

  • of that determination and the reason for it; and

  • that parents have the right to request an assessment to determine the child’s eligibility and educational needs.

Unless the parents request an assessment, the public agency is not required to conduct one.

If it is decided that additional data is needed, the group then identifies what is needed to determine:

  • whether your son or daughter has a particular category of disability (e.g., “other health impairment,” “specific learning disability”);

  • your child’s present levels of performance (that is, how he or she is currently doing in school) and his or her academic and developmental needs;

  • whether your child needs special education and related services; and

  • if so, whether any additions or modifications are needed in a special education and related services to enable your child to meet the goals set out in the IEP to be developed and to participate, as appropriate, in the general curriculum.

An example may help crystallize the comprehensive scope of evaluations: Consider a first-grader with suspected hearing and vision impairments who’s been referred for an initial evaluation. In order to fully gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information and identify all of the child’s special education and related service’s needs, evaluation of this child will obviously need to focus on hearing and vision, as well as, cognitive, speech/language, motor, and social/behavioral skills, to determine:

  • the degree of impairment in vision and hearing and the impact of these impairments on the child;

  • if there are additional impairments in other areas of functioning (including those not commonly linked to hearing and/or vision) that impact the child’s aptitude, performance, and achievement; and

  • what the child’s educational needs are that must be addressed.

With this example, any of the following individuals might be part of this child’s evaluation team: audiologist, psychologist, speech-language pathologist, social worker, occupational or physical therapist, vision specialist, regular classroom teacher, educational diagnosticians, or others.

 

Variety, Variety! --

The evaluation must use a variety of assessment tools and strategies. This has been one of the cornerstones of IDEA’s evaluation requirements from its earliest days. Under IDEA, it is inappropriate and unacceptable to base any eligibility decision upon the results of only one procedure. Tests alone will not give a comprehensive picture of how a child performs or what he or she knows or does not know. Only by collecting data through a variety of approaches (e.g., observations, interviews, tests, curriculum-based assessment, and so on) and from a variety of sources (parents, teachers, specialists, child) can an adequate picture be obtained of the child’s strengths and weaknesses.

IDEA also requires schools to use technically sound instruments and processes in an evaluation. Technically sound instruments generally refer to assessments that have been shown through research to be valid and reliable (71 Fed. Reg. at 46642). Technically sound processes require that assessments and other evaluation materials be:

  • administered by trained and knowledgeable personnel;

  • administered in accordance with any instructions provided by the producer of the assessments; and

  • used for the purposes for which the assessments or measures are valid and reliable.

In conjunction with using a variety of sound tools and processes, assessments must include those that are tailored to assess specific areas of educational need (for example, reading or math) and not merely those that are designed to provide a single general intelligence quotient or IQ.

Taken together, all of this information can be used to determine whether the child has a disability under IDEA, the specific nature of the child’s special needs, whether the child needs special education and related services and, if so, to design an appropriate program.

 

Consider Language, Communication Mode, and Culture

Another important Evaluation must also be conducted in the child’s typical, accustomed mode of communication (unless it is clearly not feasible to do so) and in a form, that will yield accurate information about what the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally. For many, English is not the native language; others use sign to communicate, or assistive or alternative augmentative communication devices. To assess such a child using a means of communication or response not highly familiar to the child raises the probability that the evaluation results will yield minimal, if any, information about what the child knows and can do a component in evaluation is to ensure that assessment tools are not discriminatory on a racial or cultural basis.

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