Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment public vs. private testing for LD

We are looking to have my son evaluated for a possible LD. We have not been impressed with the staff at my son's school, but they are free. How much can a public school mess up an LD evaluation? Is it important for us to go private?

I would check to make sure the tester has experience with giftedness. That said, we found ours within the school to be kind, knowledgeable and understanding.

I would be less concerned with a school "messing up" an LD eval than I would be concerned you might not get as much information through a school eval. None of us can predict reasonably how an eval will go at your specific school (unless we've been through an eval there) - I would suggest you try to network through as many parents locally as you can who've had experience with LD evals through your school and your school district. If you have an advocate's group you can ask there too.

Re the differences between school district and private - for kids who are being tested for LDs - it's been our experience that you receive more testing through a private neuropsych - school testing will show how the LDs impact different types of tests, but the neuropsych will test one step further to determine what is at the root of those differences. For instance, for my ds who is dysgraphic and has an expressive language disorder - the eval he went through at school to qualify for eligibility for an IEP under SLD/written expression included ability and achievement testing (WJ-III for both) and the TOWL (Test of Written Language). Work samples were also reviewed, as well as state testing results. Grades would have been reviewed if he'd been at a school that gave grades. If we'd had no other testing what we would have learned from that was: ds has a challenge with writing. It was also suggested that some of the issues with writing could also be the result of many other things, possibly ADHD, possibly lack of motivation, etc.

The neurospych testing included all of the above (WISC for IQ instead of WJ-III Cog), *plus* - detailed parent interview (birth through present), behavioral surveys from parents and teachers, executive functioning tests, attention tests, fine motor and visual integration tests. What we were able to learn from the neurospych was very specific - we came away with a diagnosis, with an understanding of *what* we were dealing with, with a suggested plan forward not just for one year but through college (general plan, not detailed at that point in time), a review of which schools in our district would best fit ds' needs, recommendations for private therapy providers, recommendations for what we could expect the school to provide in terms of remediation and accommodations, and a resource that we could come back to at future dates to ask very specific questions of re our child.

So my experience has been that having that neurospych info was *extremely* important to us in understanding how to approach our ds' education as well as understanding how his disabilities impact his life outside of school.

One other small thing that can also really matter - the players on my ds' school "team" were constantly changing from year to year. We had three different school psychs over three years, two different SPED reps, different teachers each year. Our neuropsych is still easily accessible years after ds' original diagnosis - she didn't disappear into the ether like the school psychs seem to

Hope some of that helps!

polarbear

Agree with what Polar said. The school's job is to look for the educational impact of potential disabilities; the neuropsych's job is to provide a comprehensive diagnostic workup. Very different tasks.

If you think your child will need services (IEP) or accommodations, you should do the paperwork to request testing through the school, but let them know you are also seeking private evaluation. They will likely accept the private tester's diagnostic work, but add their own observations. Doing the two processes in parallel helps you get through it faster, since the school is *required* to do their own evaluation process.

DeeDee

We did a neuropsych eval this summer for DS, getting the results tomorrow. We were fortunate to find a psychologist who took our insurance, so that helped make the decision for us.

Two main reasons we went private rather than using school eval. First, in our school an LD is not considered to be "real" unless the child is performing a year or two behind academically. Our DS is above grade level in everything despite the LD I suspect he has, so I'm not even sure they would have evaluated him even if we had asked. Second, there was a point a couple of years ago that I had very little trust in the school. That has changed and we are in a much better place now in 4th grade than we were in 1st, but one thing about the private testing is that WE control the information, not them, and that was really important to me.

Public school psychologists are notorious for not understanding gifted kids, particularly 2E ones. My son's first round of testing was done at the public school and their conclusion was that he was on the low side of average and "just slow." The more accurate diagnosis was that he is HGish and has dyslexia. Major difference!

I'd go to a private psychologist who specializes in 2E evaluations.

The same thing would have happened to us if we hadn't had our private eval first, and if I didn't know (through that eval) that it was important to look at discrepancies and variation in subtest scores. The school eval process was very formulaic - everything was put into specifically formatted forms, and the scores that were reported in those forms were the averaged totals, not the subtests. We had to specifically bring up the subtest variation, had to request a copy of the full set of subtest scores, and had to specifically request that the low subtest scores that are indicative of our ds' challenges be included in his eligibility report. We also had to specifically request certain tests which illustrate and define his disability - the school district routinely *gives* those tests, and is very familiar with them - but we had to know to ask for them, the school staff wasn't going to offer them up unless we requested them.

None of the professionals we saw either at school or outside of school have been experts in gifted students, let alone 2e children - we simply don't have an "expert" in our geographical area or anyone who specializes in gifted/2e. However, the private professional considered the gifted side of our ds as well as the challenges in making recommendations, and the school psych did not. In fact, it's my guess that the school psych had never seen a kid with a high IQ before because school psychs are typically seeing kids who are challenged with lower ability. Not only did this make it less likely that he/she would understand a 2e challenge, it also meant that we had to spend a lot of times as parents explaining 2e to the school staff etc in meetings, and we had to pre-empt a lot of eye-rolling on the part of the staff when scores were read at meetings etc. (eta - having that private eval that specifically stated a diagnosis was *really* helpful in advocating through this belief that everything was "fine" because ds had a higher-than-typical IQ than the school staff was used to seeing at IEP eligibility meetings.)

polarbear

It makes me so sad to think of those kids out there who only get the public eval and have to live with the frustration and negative self-concept that can grow from that misrepresentation of their abilities. For my ds, I just did not trust the schools to understand him. So we opted for the outside evaluation. Not sure yet how useful it will be. I go for the follow-up meeting to discuss and get the report this afternoon!

DS had a neuoropsych eval at a well-respected place and the school is ignoring all the recommendations, saying that a medical disability is different than an educational disability (he was diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder among other things). I would not trust the school a bit to do a decent eval, but on the other hand if they ignore or dismiss outside evals, what good is that either.

DS already has an IEP but they won't add any services to it unless they do their own comprehensive eval (which will probably be bogus).

It definitely doesn't hurt to get an outside eval. It helps you to convince the school of what he needs, and it is good for your own information, but the school isn't forced to accept it.

OK all, after reading here we are definitely going with the private testing. Our professional is an expert in gifted and 2e. It's a no brainer after reading this!

Thanks!