Even though teachers are not neuropsychologists, they and the school have an affirmative legal obligation under the IDEA to identify students with differences. Quirky qualifies. The district is legally obligated to conduct an evaluation of your son. The way this happens it that you send an email to your child's teacher and the principal expressing your concern about your son's possible 'learning disabilities' and request a CSE meeting to arrange for an evaluation. (I know - it's totally odd to refer to a highly intelligent student as 'learning disabled,' but that's the prescribed term.) Get a binder and be prepared to print out every communication you have with the school. Tell your pediatrician your concerns and get her - or him - to write a note saying that Aspergers or whatever is suspected. Bring the letter with you to the CSE and make an extra copy for the record. Keep the original in your binder. You will be asking for a neuropsychological and educational evaluation. A good evaluation should include specific recommendations of modifications. If you do not feel that the evaluation is thorough, you can ask for an independent evaluation. You get to select the evaluator from a list maintained by your district and, again, you need not pay anything additional. The reason I have used private pay evaluators is to maintain control and to get the results more speedily. This is an issue of Federal law. Get the eval and take it from there. Parental involvement is legally mandated - which is a positive in some ways and a negative in others. Where are you located?
