A website created for families
who want to know more about the assessment process!
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From referral to staffing... Who can refer your child? Your child can be referred to the 0 -5 year old program for special needs by your child's physician, your child care provider, a neighbor, a friend or by yourself and/or any family member. Basically, anyone who may have concerns for your child's development may refer your child. Concerns may vary from multiple areas of developmental delays to individual areas of delays. The areas of concern may include speech and language development, academic development, social/emotional development, self care development and/or gross or fine motor development. The delays may be in one or more areas of development. Once the referral is made then the agency must obtain permission from you for screening. In Florida this agency is called Child Find. After referral, then what...? Once your child has been referred and they have obtained your permission for a screening, you will be contacted in order to set up an appointment for the screening. A screening is a short, informal assessment that will determine whether further, more formal evaluation is necessary. The screening will probably include an interview with you regarding your child's history and present levels of functioning. If the screening finds that further evaluation is necessary you will set up an appointment with the evaluation team from the school system. Who makes up the evaluation team? When your child is referred to the evaluation team for further evaluation, the team sets up an appointment for you to bring in your child for evaluation. If you are unable to bring your child in the team can come to you. The team is generally made up of the school psychologist, the home/school liaison and/or the speech therapist, occupational therapist and the physical therapist. The last three therapists would only be included if it was determined in the screening that your child may need speech/language therapy, occupational therapy and/or physical therapy. After evaluation ... When the evaluation is complete the school psychologist goes over all of the assessment to find results. You will then be called back for a meeting with the team to go over the results. Be prepared to come to this meeting with questions, suggestions and recommendations for your child. Recommendations can include your outlook for your child's future, where you see your child in a year and what methods work best with your child. Remember that you know your child the best and any input you offer will be a great help. A teacher and an ESE specialist will become part of the team at this point. All the results will be discussed in order to determine if your child qualifies for any services. In order to qualify, your child must have one area of delay of 25% or more or two or more areas of delay at 20% or more. The areas being addressed include gross motor, fine motor, self help, social/emotional, cognitive, speech and language. Your child may not have enough delays to place them in a program. However, if they do show significant delays they will qualify for program. Your child may only qualify for speech and language and receive these services on a walk-in basis. If they qualify for full time services the teacher is on the team in order to write your child's Individual Family Services Plan (IFSP) for ages 0 - 2 or Individual Education Plan (IEP) for ages 3 -5. |
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