Should I have My Child Evaluated?
One of the most common questions I get from parents is: “Should I have my child evaluated?” This can be an emotionally charged and confusing question. Maybe you are wondering if the things you notice in your child are part of typical development or if they indicate that an evaluation might be helpful. Or maybe you are considering having your child evaluated but are unsure how evaluation would benefit them and are worried there could be negative impacts.
So this month, I will tackle the question of evaluation head-on. First, I’ll cover what evaluation is (and isn’t!), then discuss reasons to have your child evaluated and what can come from it.
Let’s jump in!
What Evaluation Is
First, let’s clarify what we mean by evaluation in this context. Evaluation is a blanket term used to describe a range of assessments, observations, questionnaires, and interviews given by medical professionals and/or school staff. Evaluations provide information about how your child learns, socializes, functions, and is achieving academically at this moment in time. Evaluation can help you and the professionals working with your child identify supports, accommodations, and strategies that might be a good fit for how their brain works. These could include things like home, school, and social supports.
What Evaluation Isn’t
Many people have fears or misconceptions about what will happen if they have their child evaluated. So, let’s talk about what evaluation isn’t!
Most importantly, evaluation does not change anything about your child. Instead, evaluation describes and names what has been happening in their brain and body all along. Regardless of the evaluation results, your child is still the same person they were before. A diagnosis or identification of a disability does not change them, but it can allow them to be better understood and supported. It can be helpful to remember that a diagnosis or disability describes something a child is experiencing, not who they are.
Secondly, evaluation does not commit you to any particular treatment plan or strategy. Instead, the evaluation will be used to discuss possible next steps with your child's medical and/or school team. After the evaluation, you, as the parent, will help select which supports your child receives and say no to anything that you do not think is best for your child.
Why you might have a child evaluated
Parents choose to have their children evaluated for a wide variety of reasons. However, the concerns that motivate parents to pursue evaluation usually fall into one or more of these five categories: learning, behavior, social skills, mental health, or referral. Here is a little more about each category and some examples of things you may have noticed about your child:
Learning
You may have concerns about how your child learns, processes, and/or retains information. For example, your child might be struggling to learn to read despite extra effort and intervention or be having difficulty with any assignments requiring note-taking.
Behavior
You may be concerned about your child's ability to meet behavior expectations or find that they need additional support to complete tasks. For example, you might consistently receive notes about your child’s behavior from school or find they struggle to complete age-appropriate self-care, home, or school tasks without your support.
Social Skills
You may have concerns about your child’s ability to interact with others and/or their ability to read and respond to social cues. For example, your child might avoid social situations and struggle to make friends or have a hard time interpreting what someone's facial expressions or body language means.
Mental health
You may have concerns about your child’s mental health and well-being. For example, your child might be consistently down, angry, moody, or anxious. You may find that these symptoms make it difficult for them to do everyday activities like going to school, sleeping, eating, or spending time with friends.
Referral
A medical provider and/or school staff may have recommended that your child be evaluated. For example, your child’s teacher may suggest that they be evaluated and provide a consent form for you to sign to allow your child to be evaluated, or your child’s pediatrician may suggest an evaluation based on what you report or what they observe at an appointment.
If you have concerns about your child in one or more of these areas, you are definitely not alone! Some parents only have concerns in one of these areas. However, it is also very common to have concerns in multiple areas. You may also have a primary area of concern and one or more secondary concerns. It is particularly common for neurodiversity to co-occur with one or more mental health concerns. If neurodiversity and a mental health concern are co-occurring, assessing and addressing both simultaneously provides the most benefit.
Possible Benefits of Evaluation
If you have concerns about your child in one or more of the five areas outlined above, you may have questions about how evaluation could help your child and what might come from it. There are a variety of ways that evaluation can benefit a child and their family. However, the benefits fall into three main categories.
Increased knowledge and understanding
The information an evaluation provides can help you better understand how to best support your child and help you access a supportive community that understands what your family is experiencing. Evaluation provides a lot of information about how a child’s brain works and specific areas of strength and potential difficulty. Many kids and families find this extremely helpful and affirming.
Learning more about your child’s strengths can help you teach them to leverage the unique ways their brain works and find activities where they can feel successful. For example, if you learn that your child’s brain is particularly good at puzzles, you might get them logic puzzles or puzzle-based video games and help them find groups of kids with similar interests. Focusing on these skills can boost your child’s self-esteem and help them understand their own strengths.
Learning more about areas your child may struggle with can help you better understand their experiences and behavior. This allows you to better support them and make tweaks to reduce stress and help them be more successful. For example, if you learn that visual reminders work well for your child, you might use a picture checklist to help them independently complete their morning routine.
Evaluation can also help you and your child find a community of people experiencing similar things. Connecting with people experiencing similar things can be life-changing for parents, kids, and siblings. Many families find diagnosis-specific support groups, online communities, camps, and clubs informative and validating. They can be a great way to help you get resources and build an understanding and affirming community for your family.
Access to in-school supports
An evaluation may identify school accommodations and/or modifications that would benefit your child. The types of supports that are possible are wide-ranging and selected specifically for each child through an Individualized Program (IEP) process. However, they can include extended time, repeated directions, additional or specialized instruction, assistive technology, or time with a specialized support person such as a counselor or occupational therapist. If your child goes to a public school, the support they qualify for is provided for free. If your child goes to a private school, the support the school is willing or able to provide varies greatly and may be included in the tuition price or require additional fees.
Access to out-of-school supports
Evaluation may also identify supports outside of school that could benefit your child. These could include therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, coaching, occupational therapy, and tutoring. Supports provided by medical professionals like cognitive behavioral therapy and occupational therapy are usually covered by private insurance or Medicaid. Nonmedical supports like tutoring and coaching are rarely covered by insurance. However, evaluation can identify the type of support person and curriculum that best fits your child.
I hope this was a helpful overview of what evaluation is, why you might choose to have your child evaluated, and what you can do with the evaluation. If you want to have your child evaluated but are overwhelmed by the process or don’t know where to start, you’re not alone! Evaluation can be a long, complicated, and confusing process. If you want more support through the process, join my newsletter and follow me on Instagram! My team and I are working on a resource I am incredibly excited about. It will guide you step by step through the entire evaluation process, including providing you with form letters to request evaluation, checklists, and appointment note sheets.