What Does Your Child’s Educational Evaluation Really Tell You?
Your Questions
- What do your child’s tests really tell you?
- What is actually being tested?
- What are the underlying functions necessary to perform well on the test?
- Are those (bottom-up) functions/processes working properly?
Start at the Bottom: Input Before Output
Simple things like an eye exam or a hearing test should not come after years of failed remediation. These are part of the entryway into the brain for learning and should be checked early.
If a child with a known hearing loss is given an academic test without the accommodations required for access, the results are considered invalid because they do not reflect the child’s true ability. That makes sense: if the child cannot fully hear the test instructions or materials, the scores do not cleanly measure the skill the test is supposed to measure.
The same question matters for children with undiagnosed hearing loss or auditory processing disorder. If a child cannot properly access the test through listening, are you really measuring the language or cognitive skill you think you are measuring?
Even if your child passed a hearing screening, that is not if your child is struggling. (Learn why here)
What the Scores Say
The scores tell the school whether the gap is large enough to qualify for support services.
They also show the academic areas in which your child qualified for help.
What The Scores Don’t Say
What may not be explained clearly is that a child’s struggle can be very real, but still not severe enough for the school to provide support. A child can score as low as the bottom 16% in a specific function and not qualify for services because they are “only” 1 standard deviation away from the average student.
Or your child may only get supports in those areas in which they scored poorly enough.
For example, a child who struggles with writing, due to a combination of a language deficit and a handwriting issue. This child may receive support services only for the language part, because they scored poorly enough to warrant services, while not receiving support for the handwriting piece because they did not do poorly enough. But perhaps the graphomotor struggle is taking away from the energy and attention this child has available to allow for focus on the language portion?
The scores don’t tell you what is causing the struggle, but the pattern of error might give a clue.
You Need Patterns and Scores
The scores don’t share the errors, but looking at the actual errors (the record form of responses your child gave and not just whether s/he answered correctly or incorrectly) can often identify a pattern. This in turn identifies where to target remediation, and can suggest what is causing this child to struggle.
If you already have testing and want help understanding the pattern of errors, schedule a consultation. 
If you still need to figure out how well the input system is serving your child, start with an assessment instead. 