Reply to MCPS IEP testing

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "MCPS IEP testing"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Best way to go about this school saying that you: 1) suspect your kid has a disability that affects his reading, speech/writing (expression of thoughts) and math and that 2) this disability is impacting him because he is below grade level in all of these areas and 3) and that your child may need specialized instruction to achieve on grade level. Therefore, you are requesting an IEP eligibility meeting, and, furthermore, you understand that the school is required, under its child Find obligation, to assess all children with suspected disability, and could someone please get in touch with you to schedule this meeting and testing.

The school then has 30 days to schedule the first meeting which is often called a “IEP eligibility meeting“ but depending upon your state or school district, they may have a slightly different name for it. At this meeting the school reviews, whether there is “suspicion of disability“ and if they find that they should then discuss what kind of data collection and testing is necessary. In order to meet the “suspicion of disability,” you have to make a plausible argument that you may meet the three prongs of the IEP determination test: 1) disorder 2) adverse impact on education and 3) need for specialized instruction. (Which I’ve already put into the suggested letter language above.)

At the IP eligibility meeting, which you are invited to and should attend, a number of people are mandated by law to attend: a special teacher, a general, a teacher, a psychologist, etc. These people may already have collected some data about your child as to how he is performing in school. You should already have collected on your own information that you would like to present: whatever testing or grades indicate that he is below level, and any emails from the teacher, relaying problems, and he work samples that you think show that he is below grade level, etc. At this first IEP meeting, the team decide if there is a reasonable suspicion of disability and if so, a 60 day assessment period opens. A psychologist present should ask you to sign consent for testing. This is often done in a very general way by just asking you to check a box for educational testing, behavioral testing, etc. at this stage you should tell the psychologist that you would like your consent to be informed to consent and would she please email you the consent form and list each particular test that she would like to conduct. The psychologist is obliged to do this if you ask - your consent must be informed and you can’t be bullied into just putting a check for some kind of blanket wide open consent.

That way, you can see what test the psychologist would already conduct. You have time to look them up and see what skills they would show and consider whether the tests the psychologist proposes cover the breadth of issues that you’re seeing in your child.

As for specific tests, they’re definitely should be an IQ test with sub testing for verbal reasoning, perceptual, reasoning, processing speed, and working memory. Based on your brief description of your kid, you probably also want: 
An auditory processing test which tests sound discrimination, segmenting, blending skills, memory for digits, words and sentences, etc.

A picture vocabulary test which tests, receptive vocabulary, and an expressive vocabulary test.

The clinical evaluation of language fundamentals which tasks respective and expressive language skills within a variety of different tasks.

Comprehensive test of phonological processing along with its rapid naming sub tests.

Phonological awareness test with appropriate sub tasks in grapheme and decoding.

Test of early reading ability.

Oral and written language scales, including the written expression scale

Testing of achievement, which is usually done by the Woodcock Johnson test, evaluating reading, oral comprehension and expression, math reasoning and math fluency, and written expression.

You may also want to test attention and executive functioning. These are often done through the school system with the BRIEF and the Connors or Vanderbilt checklists.

You can have a back-and-forth discussion with the psychologist about why she selected certain tests - what she thinks they may or may not show - issues that your son is having that don’t seem to be covered by any of the testing in which you ask her to recommend what tests can be considered.

If you have any of this conversation orally with the psychologist, you always wanna document in writing by a follow up email thanking her for her time and recapping what it is you and she discussed and agreed to.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics