Bridging the gap: What an educational evaluation should look like

Presented by: Michael Hart, Ph.D.
April 17, 2013
* Bridging the Gap:
Psychoeducational Evaluations
as the Key to Collaboration!
www.doctormichaelhart.com
doctormichaelhart@gmail.com

A bit of history
*My professional arc
* Neuroscience
*Shaywitz, Denckla, All Kinds of Minds
* Regulations supporting neuroscience
CONFIDENTIAL www.doctormichaelhart.com 2 5/16/2013

IDEA: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
"Specific learning disability" is defined as follows in 2004:
The term "specific learning disability" means a disorder in
one or more of the basic psychological processes involved
in understanding or in using language, spoken or
written, which disorder may manifest itself in the
imperfect ability to
listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical
calculations.

According to the 2006 IDEA regulations concerning SLD, each state must
adopt criteria for determining whether a child has a specific learning
disability as defined by §300.8 that:
(1) Must not require the use of severe discrepancy between intellectual
ability and achievement for determining whether a child has a
specific learning disability as defined in §300.8 (c)(10);
(2) Must permit the use of a process based on the child’s response to
scientific, research-based intervention; and
(3) May permit the use of other alternative research-based procedures
for determining whether a child has a specific learning disability as
defined in §300.8 (c)(10); (IDEA, 20 U.S.C. §1414 (b)(6)(A).

*Waiting to Fail!
*Ability/Achievement discrepancy model for
determining disabilities and consequently
services

*Is RTI the Answer?

*The thing about RTI: A
sidestep in the right-ish
direction

*www.rtinetwork.org
*No consensus on type of RTI to use
*No consensus on curricula, instructional
methods, measurement, teacher training
*No mechanism for differential diagnosis of SLD
and other disorders
*“Diagnosis by treatment failure”
*How do you assess “true positive?”
*Where does this leave us?

*Where we are now
*“The Third Way”
*Only 21 of 50 states
allow using The Third
Way to identify SLD

*An example based
on our most
common need

*Our Most Common Need
*Research consistently reports that 80% of learning
problems are due to language processing issues.
*The vast majority of those with problems learning
how to read exhibit difficulty with phonological
processing.
*Phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming and
phonological working memory
*However, it’s complicated…There is variability in
the underlying processes beyond just phonological

My favorite piece of art
1
2 3
4

*The Importance of
Processing Testing
If we don’t know how a child’s brain
is wired and how that impacts their
behavior and learning in school…
How are we going to…

*Support and Collaboration
*Support our teachers efforts to help the student
both formally and informally (e.g., IEP
development; working day to day)
*Give parents the language to advocate for their
child within the “system” and to collaborate with
school staff in the day to day environment
*Arm the child with language to describe their
learning style (age appropriately) in a non-
pathological , more positive way

*Waiting to Fail!
*Ability/Achievement discrepancy model for
determining disabilities and consequently
services

5/16/2013CONFIDENTIAL www.doctormichaelhart.com 16

*Thank you very much for your
time and consideration today!
Please feel free to contact me
at
doctormichaelhart@gmail.com
and sign up for my newsletter
at
doctormichaelhart.com

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