Requesting an Educational Evaluation: How to Get the Right Evaluation for Your Child

If you decide that your child needs an educational evaluation, you will have to put a request in writing to your school.   The wording of your letter is important and can determine the quality of the evaluation your child gets. If your letter simply asks for an evaluation to be done, and does not specifically state your concerns, your child may receive a very basic evaluation that does not assess the specific areas you are concerned about.

I recommend you ask for as many assessments as you think your child needs in that letter.  The more extensive the evaluation is, the better chance that an accurate diagnosis will be made. A good evaluation should produce a very detailed picture of your child’s learning profile. It will state their strengths and weaknesses, and should compare them to other children their age. It should include formal assessments, such as a cognitive test (sometimes called IQ test) and an educational achievement test. The evaluation should also include some formal tests in the area of concerns for your child. So if you are concerned about your child’s reading ability, the school should have administered a formal reading test, in addition to the educational achievement test. The evaluation should also include some informal assessments, such as an interview with you and/or your child , an observation, and a collection of work samples.

In order to assure that this gets done, you need to send a letter that is very specific about your concerns and what you want areas you want assessed during the evaluation. Areas of possible concern could be reading, math, writing, spelling, phonological (letter sounds) processing, sensory processing, attention, behavior, emotional needs, speech, oral language, social skills, self  image/concept, motor skills, hearing, vision, and cognitive processing issues/memory (this not a complete list of possible issues that affect school-age children).

Here is some sample language that you can use in your letter requesting an evaluation:

• This letter is a request for an educational evaluation to be done on my child__________.
• I am requesting this evaluation to be done because I suspect that ________may have a specific learning disability in ______.
• I am requesting this evaluation because ______ has failed to make academic progress and I suspect he/she may have a disability in the area of________.
• Because of my suspicion that _______ may have disabilities in the areas of _______, I am requesting that as part of the evaluation,  _______ assessments be done. [Be specific here. Use the list above as a guide or research other possible disabilities.

An evaluation that is not very thorough will only include an educational achievement test and perhaps a few other informal assessments (such as a classroom observation). While some good information can be obtained through an achievement test, they usually do not pick up on specific learning disabilities because these tests look at a very broad range of academic areas. Also, the test results can be interpreted different ways by different people, depending on their experience level and directives from their superiors (meaning some school systems will deny services to children that score in the low range on achievement tests because of budget constraints). Also, your child may have other issues impacting their ability to achieve, such attention, sensory, or emotional issues.  Therefore, you want your child to have a range of assessments given to them so that no one test will be used to decide if they need special education services.

There are laws about the amount of time the school has to complete the testing once they receive your letter, so find out what that time line is in your state. Once the testing is complete, you should get a copy of the results a few days before the meeting with the school.  If you feel that your child did not receive a comprehensive evaluation from the school, you need to tell them right away verbally and in writing. The school will then have to discuss with you either doing further testing themselves or paying for an outside evaluation.

Good luck and remember to be specific about your concerns and what kinds of evaluations you want done.

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