Re: Independent assessment

[Guest guest]

Hi Patty. I don't know if one person would be qualified to do a whole MFE by themselves. That's why they are called multifactored - more than one person does the evaluation. In my son's case, he's been evaluated by a SLP, a school psychologist, an OT and a PT. Anyway, I'd think that the type of independent evaluator you'd be looking for would be contingent on what type of contention you have with the school. Is it sensory based or speech based or behavior based?

Our family did have an independent eval done, but we paid for it out of pocket, went out of state (to see an expert), and did not involve the school. It wasn't done because we had an issue with the school, but more for info and advice for us and the school. I reread their report a few months ago (it's over a year old), and I realized we had implemented only a fraction of their advice, and recently began to follow some more of their advice.

Also, last March, we saw Dr. Klein, a ped neurologist at Rainbow Childrens, and while it wasn't an MFE and we went for medical reasons (paid by insurance), her report was helpful at the following IEP meeting. She stressed the importance of certain services schools supply and the dire consequences of not receiving those services (mostly pragmatic speech therapy). While I had mixed feelings toward that appt, from a school services perspective, it was most helpful.

MFEs done by the school can be more than once every 3 years. If you think the school is competent and honest, you can always request in writing that an MFE be done by the school, esp. since you feel the IEP goals are not adequate for your child.

If you think that your issue with the school could be long term, my advice would be to talk to a lawyer and spell it out to him/her. When I spoke with an area lawyer, she told me that they have their own evaluators (maybe even on staff) who would be able to do an MFE. Should you have to go to due process, you would be much better prepared and, as Pete says, the best way to avoid due process is to prepare to go to due process.

I, too, am interested in what parents with experience in this area will say.

Marotta

----- Original Message -----

From: pcrawfo1

Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2005 10:28 AM

Subject: [ ] Independent assessment

Does anyone have any recommendations in this area for someone to perform an independent assessment with regards to the whole MFE/IEP area? We are having difficulty with our school district writing her goals based on an evaluation that is over a year old and things that were not developmentally appropriate for a three year old are now glaring deficits for a four year old. Thanks in advance...would really like to hear from some parents with some personal experience in this area.CheersPatty

[Guest guest]

Hi Patty,

We had some issues with our school in regards to following our sons IEP and writing a new one. Our school psychologist did our son's MFE and the SLP,OT,and teachers all had input in the evals. We also saw our neurologist Carolyn Greene at University Hospital and she recommend more speech therapy and a behavioral psychologist. If you don't feel the IEP is accurate for your son and are running into a brick wall with the school we found an incredible attorney that specializes in this type of law. Her web site is also very helpful in answering common legal rights for our kids. I recommend you have all your documentation to show the school of your child's need for the different services you are requesting and so they know you know what your talking about.

www.nesssiegel.com/index.html

We found alot of info here and I think she addresses how to get the school to cover outside evals by an outside party. Good luck, pcrawfo1 <PCrawfo1@...> wrote:

Does anyone have any recommendations in this area for someone to perform an independent assessment with regards to the whole MFE/IEP area? We are having difficulty with our school district writing her goals based on an evaluation that is over a year old and things that were not developmentally appropriate for a three year old are now glaring deficits for a four year old. Thanks in advance...would really like to hear from some parents with some personal experience in this area.CheersPatty

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