Understanding Evaluation Report from Child Study Team

I have just received the report from the child study team for an evaluation for my preschool age child. Is there some resource that explains what the scores mean. TIA

1cbras said:

I have just received the report from the child study team for an evaluation for my preschool age child. Is there some resource that explains what the scores mean. TIA

Standard score ("ss") "normal" is a score of 100. Fifteen points below that is one standard deviation, so if your child's Psych test (IQ) score was 100 or so, 15 points lower on any measure would suggest a possible learning disability. I suggest you Google the test name, and look for test score interpretation on s website. Don't hesitate to call the child study team who administered the tests.

preschool age is more about developmental issues (receptive/expressive language, gross motor, fine motor, activities of daily living, cognition, social/emotional development. learning disabilities can't really be tested for until kindergarten-2nd grade as kids just aren't developmentally advanced enough to screen for specific learning disabilities. It used to be that learning disabilities were often picked up in 2nd grade when academics became more vigorous...but that level of instruction is in K/1st nowadays...but you can still have an issue where a kid just isn't developmentally ready for the academics. I struggled in the early grades just because I was not developmentally ready...i was able to get through, but always felt lost until about 3rd grade and ended up near the top of my class.

I'm hoping you received this report in advance of a meeting with the CST and are just trying to be reasonably prepared for the meeting itself. I used to administer the social/emotional portion of that testing and it is not nearly as simple or straightforward as an IQ #.

You're correct about pre-k and learning disabilities.

delays at the preschool level could be due to a learning disability. for example, it is common with dyslexia that it starts as a problem with verbal language skills, but they just use the general classification of preschool disabled until age 5 because it is impossible to test for actual learning disabilities younger than that. even at 5-7 it can be questionable to attempt to diagnose a learning disability and the child may end up with a classification of 'speech impaired' if the difficulty is with language at age 5 and might not be changed to specific learning disability (if that is the case) until the end of 1st grade or 2nd grade, in some states, they continue with a 'developmental disabilities' classification until age 8.

I'm trying to determine if she is eligible for services. As a lay person I'm unable to discern this from the report.

1cbras said:

I'm trying to determine if she is eligible for services. As a lay person I'm unable to discern this from the report.

You must ask the authors of the report, or your Child Study Team.

You may want to have a professional from outside the district take a look. Linda Auld at Suburban Learning Center in Maplewood is terrific.

There should be a brief summary of each section, as well as an overall summary. Without seeing any of the data, the phrases I'd be looking for are "significant delay", "below what would expected" and "which impairs her ability to". Anything that says "within normal limits" indicates that they are not offering services for that aspect.

What are your concerns? What led to the evaluation?

Her teacher recommended the evaluation.

I don't remember, but do they break down the developmental area (motor skills, language, social/emotional, self help, cognition)? do they list any level of delay?

at one point I think they used a 25% or more delay in 2 or more areas or a 33% or more delay in at least 1 area.

There should be a concluding set of findings at the end of the report. It should give you an idea of how the evaluation went.

1cbras said:

Her teacher recommended the evaluation.

For what? What were the concerns?