Re: LD Assessment
Posted by Scott on 2/11/2009, 5:15 pm, in reply to "
LD Assessment"
Message modified by board administrator 11/28/2009, 5:32 pm
It's a bit confusing why you would be asked to conduct such an evaluation rather than someone in the district who is more familiar with assessment of young children. But in any case, it is virtually impossible to accurately evaluate the possibility of any type of learning disability in such a young child. A very high percentage of kindergartners demonstrate reading difficulties and information processing characteristics of dyslexia (such as letter/number reversals) but will most likely “grow out of them” and develop appropriate reading skills by second or third grade. And because standardized achievement tests measure such narrow skills at that age it is extremely difficult to clearly establish significant underachievement. If you absolutely have no choice and cannot postpone the assessment for another year or so, I would recommend cognitive assessment using either the DAS-II or Wisc-IV (depending on the exact age of the child) and an individual achievement test such as the WIAT-II or Woodcock-Johnson III. The cognitive assessment may provide some tentative insights regarding information processing concerns and the comparison of IQ and achievement scores may provide a measure of underachievement. If the child attends a school district which utilizes RTI (response to intervention) instead of the traditional discrepancy model for identifying a learning disability, then it would probably be best to forgo the formal assessment altogether and use more curriculum-based measures to evaluate the child's progress. In any case, be sure to convey to parents and school staff that any results from your evaluation will be tentative at best. Good luck!
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