My son’s triennial is coming up this spring, a question just popped in my head, should his testing be the same tests used in the original evaluation? The reason I ask is because in VA he was given something like 9 different tests, but to qualify him here at a DODDS school, they gave him only one test. So I don’t actually know if they use the tests here that they used in VA. Thanks y’all.
Re: triennial eval.(long reply)
The dodds school used the woodcock johnson. It may have been two tests, one is cognitive ability and the other was academic achievement, this was in 6th grade, the school said he didn’t have sufficient documentation to qualify for dodds elegibility (this after all we went through in the 4th grade to finally qualify for sp.ed!!). The woodcock johnson came up with a lot of low, broad and regular averages. Nothing very specific. It did come up with Chris being a visual learner, with a low processing speed. Didn’t say what kind of processing speed and didn’t recommend further inquiry. I had written about this before a while back, because I wasn’t totally satisfied that they had a full picture, he has been on the honor roll here in middle school, both in 6th and now in 7th, so I feel like they are paying attention to him and making sure he is learning.
In VA, the school gave him the kaufman test of educational achievement, the differential ability scales, the wiat-screener, the bender visual-motor gestalt test, the visual aural digit span test, the test of auditory perceptual skills-revised and projective drawings. They noted in the summary that although he tested in the average range, specific deficits in auditory processing and short-term memory were evident. Also that he showed difficulty using ‘two sensory modalities, especially when written expression is required’. I kind of figure that to mean, he can’t listen and write notes at the same time. The kaufman summary found him below average overall compared to his peers. Also noted was difficulty encoding vowels and irregular sounds when attempting to spell phonetically and below average reading decoding and reading comprehension skills. difficulty decoding variant vowels and reading skill well below average compared to peers. His math skills were low because at the time he hadn’t gotten multiplication yet but was tested on it.
I am not sure all those tests are necessary, I do think he needs at least a reading assessment, a writing assessment, testing of his short term memory, and perhaps a math assessment as well as testing his auditory processing. I am not sure about how I go about the auditory part since we use the military docs, I asked once, the docs said the school should provide it. I would think though either we would still go to a mil. doc or a german doc.
Any info and opinions are appreciated. Thanks y’all.
It’s good to be able to compare the test scores to the last ones,; I’d request more than one test (what is it?) unless you’ve already got a really good grasp on just where your kiddo is and what he needs.