Reading Disabilities – Evaluation in School

Transcript

How do we test for reading disability or dyslexia? First of all, there is a slight difference between the way we test for a reading disability in private practice and the way we assess for reading disability in the schools. And I’ll explain both of those to you. Let’s start with the schools because that’s your first place that you should go to, to get an evaluation for reading disability, especially for families, for children, five through their senior year of high school, it’s free, it’s available. It’s your right. It comes under the special education law called IDEA, and it’s there to protect children with reading disabilities as well as other disabilities. So typically what happens in this school is there’s a meeting to determine where the child’s strengths and needs are. And if there is a place for an evaluation, or if there’s a need for an evaluation for a reading disability. Once the reading disability assessment begins, typically a history will be taken from the parent to find out what, you know, did the child develop at the typical milestones, was their language on time. All of those kinds of factors. Is their vision sufficient, is their hearing sufficient? Is their language sufficient? So if those questions are no, then right away, we have to rule those out first. So did they have an opportunity to learn? Can they see the words on the printed page? Can they hear the language? Have they been given reading instructions? So all of those questions need to be answered before further evaluation tests do.