Evaluations and Why They Are Important for Your Child

By Dr. Grettel Martinez

When children begin struggling academically in school, parents sometimes hear from teachers and even their pediatricians to wait until “they outgrow it.” While this is true of most children who are very resilient (and most children are), academic deficits that have a foundation in how the child processes new information don’t simply go away or get better. Instead, they worsen over time as the child progresses to the next level in school.

In practice, I have witnessed children whose parents were told to wait to get help during kindergarten or first grade. Now in third grade, they’re failing the year, and they must either go to summer school or repeat the grade level.

For some kids, repeating the grade level is not a big deal. For others, though, it puts a dent in their self-esteem. They see their close friends go on to fourth grade while they remain “behind” with the younger kids. The relationships they have formed with these friends can also be jeopardized. The reality is that these children have not acquired foundational academic skills due to learning deficits or improper academic instruction and advancing to the next grade level won’t simply erase that fact. These deficits can snowball and lead to frustration for both the children and their parents.

To avoid grade retention, we have to be alert parents. Why are some of these children not learning? Ask yourself these questions:

1. Can my child attend to information presented long enough to retain it?

2. Can my child provide his attention at school when the teacher is lecturing, and he is asked to copy from the board?

3. Can my child retain information long enough to study it?

4. Can my child do well on tests after studying?

5. Can my child comprehend information presented auditorily as well as when the information is presented visually?

6. Can my child understand written text?

7. Can my child focus even with certain distractions around him?

8. Can my child pay attention to details, or does he rush and make careless mistakes?

9. Does my child have enough vocabulary to read fluently?

10. Is my child able to decode and recognize sight-words?

These are some of the questions assessed during a comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation. These questions are important to understand how your child is processing information, learning or not, and what can be done to remediate learning deficits that are specific and not due to cognitive global deficits.

Also, keep in mind that attention and distractibility are both huge factors in learning. For memories to be encoded, the child must be able to first attend to information presented, rehearse it long enough to memorize it, and then access it when needed during the process of thinking.

Other behaviors that are important for an efficient learner depend on executive functions. The executive functions are a set of skills required to live an efficient life. These include sustaining attention, emotional regulation, organization, planning, the ability to abstain from acting impulsively, motivation and working memory (or the ability to manipulate information in the mind, say, remembering a 10-digit phone number while driving). Executive functions are also assessed in a psychoeducational evaluation.

If you answered “yes” to all the above questions and your child still seems to have an executive function deficit, don’t simply rush to get your child tested. There’s more to look at:

1. Has anything been done at school to correct these deficits, and if so, has it worked?

2. Do the behaviors continue even after making certain accommodations, such as seating the child next to the teacher and away from distractions?

3. Are these behaviors temporary and only observed in one setting by one person, or persistent and present in more than one setting by more than one person?

4. Is it possible that these behaviors are due to other factors not related to school, such as medical illnesses; namely ear infections, speech delays, oral motor deficits, infections in the womb or as a newborn, poor eyesight that needs to be corrected with glasses, or any other extraneous factors?

5. Can my child benefit from tutoring with a special educator in the areas where the deficits are noted?

As you may notice, being a watchful parent is important. Young children don’t have the skills developed to notice these differences. They may think it’s their fault that they’re failing, or they’re not smart enough for school. It is our job as parents (and home educators) to pay careful attention to our children.

In a nutshell, school can be difficult, but it shouldn’t be so difficult the point where your child is failing despite proper accommodations in place. A thorough evaluation by a specialist is extremely helpful to recognize the source of the learning difficulty. The earlier these challenges are recognized, the better.

Our youngsters’ minds are flexible and can absorb learning quickly. The younger they are started in remediation, the more they will benefit from it. Children can benefit significantly when properly remediated and accommodated. So be on the lookout for the signs above in your children, starting as early as preschool. Observe, follow your “gut feeling” if you must, and take action!