Marj: How can I moved forward after hiring an IEE speech pathologist who wrote an evaluation for a pay check for herself.? My grandson is rising 7th grade and reads on a low 3rd grade level. He has shown signs of dsylexia, but this pathologist indicates that he has a comprehension disorder and could not explain what that is. It appears that I wasted the evaluation as I don’t have any new information. More importantly, it was only to enrich this person. Please help!
You may want to consider getting a neuropsychological and/or educational psychology evaluation. Request that the district cover them. In this case, your justification for district expense would be that the speech/lang eval pointed to a “comprehension disorder” which needs further study.
If there is a developmental pediatrics facility within travel distance of you, that would be a good choice as they will look at the whole child AND all the details, and really figure out what’s going on. However, if there is a big delay in getting started with dev. ped., see if you can piece together more quickly some evaluations as I described in the first paragraph.
I don’t see any evidence to support your statements that the evaluator “wrote an evaluation to pay herself” or that the evaluation “was only to enrich this person.” Did I miss the evidence that proves your point?
Marj: We have articles on Wrightslaw about finding an evaluator. Here are a few suggestions:
* Contact advocacy groups that represent individuals with your child’s disability, ask them to recommend evaluators. If the child has reading problems, we recommend contacting the International Dyslexia Assoc.
* Contact medical centers children’s hospitals, mental health centers, and clinics.
* Ask other parents for recommendations.
* Contact private special education schools, ask for their recommended evaluators.
Before long, you will have a list of evaluators from different groups and individuals. You are likely to find a good evaluator on this list.