Making Sense of Evaluation Results Without Losing Your Mind

By: Brett Kraftson, Advocate

In one of my former lives, I was a school psychologist. I remember being really careful about how much time I spent conveying evaluation results to parents. Some school psychologists I know might spend 30–40 minutes reviewing results in an IEP meeting, and by that point everyone's eyes have glazed over — teachers are checked out, parents are overwhelmed, and the SLP is still wondering when they get their turn to speak (and don't forget, we still have the OT to get through too). I made it my goal to keep my portion under 20 minutes, and even that was rough. And when I went through the evaluation process as a parent for the first time, I remember thinking, "Wait — you think you know my kid better than I do? No Way!"

Suffice it to say: evaluation results are overwhelming, even for people who do this for a living.

If your child is in the evaluation process right now, know this: it's going to be overwhelming, stressful, and emotional, and you're going to question things along the way. That's all completely normal. But there are a few things you can do to make the process a little less stressful.

First, digest the information ahead of time. If the evaluation team hasn't offered, reach out and ask for a copy of the report a week in advance — depending on your state, this may even be a requirement. My suggestion: ask for a phone call with the evaluation team lead (often the school psychologist) before the meeting. They can walk you through the results ahead of time, which gives you a few days to sit with the information instead of processing it in real time in front of a room full of people. And make sure you write down your questions. No question is a stupid question! 

Second, don't focus too much on the scores. Standardized tests are important, and the results mean something — they help drive eligibility decisions. But don't mistake a score for a verdict on what your child is or isn't capable of in life. A score only represents how your child performed on that particular test, on that particular day, at that particular time. The big question is, does the general story you are hearing from the evaluation team match the child you know? 

Third, don't let yourself get pressured into making decisions immediately after hearing heavy information. Schools are often working against the clock — trying to get through the data and possibly present an IEP before specials or a teacher's prep period ends. But if you're not ready, it's okay to ask for a pause and reconvene the meeting. In the grand scheme of things, a few extra days to process emotionally and mentally is far better than agreeing to — or even just discussing — an IEP before you're ready.

Lastly, and this is important: you might find you don't agree with the evaluation results. That's okay — federal law has a specific provision for exactly this situation, called an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE). If you disagree with the findings, you can request an IEE at the district's expense. Once you do, the district has to either agree to fund it or file for due process to defend their own evaluation as appropriate — they can't just ignore the request or quietly deny it.

If you're struggling to understand evaluation results, disagreeing with an eligibility decision, or feeling like the school just isn't seeing what you're seeing, reach out to an advocate. We're here to help.