Families and children come into our center to participate in play-based assessment by the evaluation team. Depending on the developmental concerns this team would include the school psychologist, intervention specialist, speech language pathologist, occupational therapist, and/or physical therapist. Evaluations take 45 minutes to an hour. Typically parents provide supplemental information regarding what their child does at home and in the community in addition to the formal evaluation. This might be in the form of parent interview or formal rating scales.
After the evaluation families are invited to participate in a virtual meeting to discuss the results of the evaluation. All team members provide information that was gathered during the evaluation process in a formal document called the Evaluation Team Report or ETR. If the team agrees that the child is eligible for special education services as a preschool child with a disability the team will schedule another meeting to develop and discuss an Individualized Education Plan or IEP. Students who are eligible for special education services are identified under one of the disability categories identified in federal and state law.