I am often asked this question by worried parents and I would like to provide an answer in order for your child to receive a complete evaluation to
provide support to help your child find a lifelong love of learning. A complete psychological evaluation for learning disabilities is paramount to address, remediate and support students with learning disabilities for several reasons. Testing and evaluation can provide the proper supports, class room accommodations and remediation strategies so that your child can access his/her education.
This evaluation must be completed by a licensed child psychologist who has the credentials to test, evaluate and provide results specific learning disabilities. A complete psychological evaluation begins with a student study team (SST) meeting with stakeholders including school administration, special education staff, classroom teachers, school or private psychologist, occupational therapist, school nurse and parents. Before the meeting, parents may be asked to complete various questionnaires. During the meeting the team will discuss key information about your child, ask questions relating to pregnancy, infant developmental milestones, early childhood, current areas of struggle, strengths, weaknesses and potential concerns in order to provide a full picture of your child’s learning struggles. This meeting will provide the child psychologist key information about the type of tests and the array of testing to best understand your child’s learning struggles. A complete psychological evaluation should include a battery of tests including cognitive ability, IQ and tests that target the specific areas identified in the SST meeting. For dyslexia, testing should include phonological processing, auditory processing, rapid naming, working memory, OT evaluation to look at visual tracking and scanning, among others. These tests should take place over a span of days to provide a more accurate picture of your child’s abilities and struggles, not just a snapshot of one day of learning. These tests can be grueling for students, school administration and parents should be aware of the testing schedule in order to support emotions that come with testing.
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