Something Feels Off at School: A Parent’s Guide to Special Ed Testing

Worried your child is still struggling while the school year flies by? This week, Dr. Tiffany is breaking down the real-world roadmap from concern to support: how to request a special education evaluation, what timelines to expect, and the exact data that moves schools to act. You’ll learn why a written request starts legal timelines, which specialists might test your child, and how to avoid the classic slowdowns—missed meetings, vague concerns, and “wait and see” plans that drag on without progress.

You’ll also get practical tools to advocate with confidence: how to gather work samples and observation notes that show patterns, what questions to ask in meetings, and when to press for reevaluation before the three-year mark. If you’re ready to replace uncertainty with a step-by-step plan, this conversation will give you the structure, language, and courage to act.

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Tuesday Talks is hosted by Dr. Tiffany. She has been a Speech/Language Pathologist for 20 years. She's also a speaker and educational consultant. Dr. Tiffany hosts webinars and in-person workshops for teachers and parents.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Tuesday Talks, your educational podcast helping parents become strong advocates for their kids and teachers to make big impacts in the classroom. Here we go. Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back for another Tuesday Talks. I really appreciate you joining me. Whether it's your first time or you're returning, your time spent here is really appreciated because I want to share information that's going to help teachers, help students, help parents all come together to really support student success. That's what we're doing here on Tuesday Talks. And today I have another great episode for you, really for parents. Parents, if you've ever had this gut feeling that something isn't quite clicking for your kid, but you don't really know where to start in asking the teacher or the school for help. This episode is for you because we are going to walk through how special education testing is initiated in public schools, how long it really takes, and why, what sort of speeds up or slows down the process for getting students evaluated and being able to access special education services, what data actually matters to the schools. We're also going to talk about those IDEA disability categories and then pieces that I think parents often miss as they're thinking about whether or not my kid needs to go through this type of evaluation process. And lastly, we're going to talk about why testing is not this one-time event, but really this iterative process that by law has to happen every three years, but can happen more frequently if it's needed. So we're really focusing this week on shifting from confusion to clarity and from waiting to advocating. We are now here at the top of 2026. By now, as a parent, you know whether things are being processed, learned, concepts are being grasped by your kids, or if they're really struggling. And there is a real difference between just that learning process and then actually kids who learn a different way. Public schools, we've talked about this many times on here. You know, teachers are working by a pacing guide. They have to hit certain material within a certain time frame and move on to the next thing. If you think back to your own public school education, there might have been some moments where you felt like, man, if I just had a little bit more time on this, I think I could get it. But the class has moved on to the next thing. And that's no fault of the teachers. It's really just the system that we're educating kids in. And so if you feel like your child is struggling beyond just what we would consider the norm, you know, learning takes time. Learning requires you to make mistakes and learn how to correct them and learn how not to make that same mistake again. But special education testing, it also calls the special education evaluation, is a formal process. And that is what really looks at kids who have maybe tried some after-school tutoring, maybe parents are working with them extra at home, maybe teachers in class are really taking the time to differentiate learning, which is a hot topic in education. And the kid just isn't getting it. I'm talking about we're now here at the top of the year, halfway through the school year, and your kid is still struggling with content that they were exposed to, taught, maybe even retaught from closer to the first nine weeks of school, maybe in the second nine weeks of school, and things just aren't clicking. Maybe you see some outward expression from the kid too, frustration, maybe some anxiousness, some just kind of apathy about education. Those are some things to really think about if you feel like your child might need you to initiate special education testing. And the reason why parents, I say you need to initiate special education testing is because not all the time are schools initiating it. If a kid is really, really struggling and there are some behaviors associated with their academic struggling, nine times out of 10, the school is going to initiate some testing because it's beyond what the teacher can handle in the classroom. Maybe the child's getting referred to the office multiple times. They want to figure out how to best support this kid and also get them in an environment as quick as possible for them to be able to learn and also not be a distraction to the 20 plus other kids in the classroom. But most times, parents, you're gonna be the ones tasked with initiating that special education testing process. And that process is used to determine whether a child has a disability under IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We're gonna talk about what those categories are. It also that evaluation process is also used to determine whether that disability adversely impacts educational performance. Now, think about what I just said. Adversely impacts educational performance. That term adversely has different definitions tied to it depending on what school district you're in. Some have a range associated with adverse impact based on scores from testing. Others bring in different sources of data to support that adverse impact, but that is a really key piece of any criteria that your kid would have to meet in order to receive special education services in schools. So we're looking at whether a child has a disability under IDEA, whether that disability adversely impacts educational performance, and whether the child requires specialized instruction. Do they need the specialized instruction from a special education teacher in order to access education for the school year and also for a specific subject area? So a diagnosis alone, like if you've taken your child to the doctor, pediatrician, like, oh, we did the rating scales, your kid has ADD, ADHD. Oh, um, you have private testing, and they said, Oh, your kid is dyslexic, or you had some outside testing done and the psychologist says, Oh, your kid is autistic. That doesn't automatically qualify a child for special education through public schools. So don't think that you can just come to the school, share a report from an outside agency, and the school is going to say, Okay, great, thanks for getting that testing done. We're gonna get them signed up for special ed right away. It doesn't work like that. I love that parents are going to get formal diagnoses because that is very important, but the school has a duty to do their own testing as well. So I really want to start off by talking about who can request testing. Parents or guardians can request testing in writing. I see this a lot with uh grandparents who are caregivers for their grandkids. And you're trying everything you can. And we had an episode on here talking about grandparents as primary caregivers that second time around for parenting. I've talked to many grandparents before, and this is something that I share with them all the time. You can request testing. You are the guardian, you have rights to the child. If you're the parent, you can simply send an email to the principal, assistant principal, write a letter, send it into the office. I want my child to be tested for special education. Also, teachers can request testing and then school teams. So if your child has done any type of intervention before in school, those school teams can also get the process started with requesting testing as well. One of the pro tips I always tell parents, even grandparents who are you know in that parent role, a written parent request triggers legal timelines. Verbal concerns do not. So hear what I just said: a written parent request triggers legal timelines. Verbal concerns do not. Coming in and talking with the teacher, talking with the administrator, talking with the reading specialist. Oh, yeah, I'm really concerned, you know, seems to be struggling with this and that. That's not a formal request. That is you having a chat. That doesn't start anything legally as it pertains to IDEA. A written request that says simply, I want my child tested for special education services, that starts a timeline because all of special education has to happen within a certain time frame. In your request, you want to also include specific either academic, behavioral, or functional concerns. You also want to give examples of how your kid is struggling in school and any of those outside reports that we talked about from doctors or outside psychologists. Also, you can share that as well. Your request doesn't have to be this long, drawn out, you know, multi-paragraph essay format. It really can't be that simple to say I want my child tested for special education services, but be prepared, parents, to include or at least talk about your specific concerns when that meeting happens. Because when you send that written request in, the school has a timeline to get a meeting scheduled to address your concerns and address your request for an evaluation. And they're going to be asking you, what are your concerns? And you need to be prepared to share specific examples, specific information, not just, oh, you know, he's struggling. He's just not able to keep up. That's not enough. You need more specific information. Bring some work that has come home that your child has struggled with, whether it was homework or a test that they came home with and got a very low grade on, not just one low grade, but we need to see that same type of occurrence happen repeatedly. Talk about the examples of how your child is struggling. And then if you have those outside reports, that would be the time to share it too. So that written request starts the timeline. And these timelines do vary state by state. But federally under IDEA, you need to have the referral, which is that gives you that consent for the evaluation. So first, schools are gonna have to gather some data. You're gonna share your concerns. If the school already sees these same concerns, that helps the process move along a little bit faster. But if parents and teachers are on two opposite ends, meaning parents are saying, My kid is struggling here, here, here. And the teacher is like, Well, in class, I don't see that. Their grades are good, you know, with a little extra help, they're able to get it. Now we're seeing the same child two very different ways. And now the school is gonna have to gather some additional data in class, maybe through an intervention process. Most times I would say what the parent sees, the teacher and the school also sees, but there are instances where they have very different perspectives on the same kid. But once you make that referral, the team comes together and they decide, yes, okay, we can evaluate this child for special education services. Once that consent is signed by you, the parent, the school typically has 60, 65 days. That would be the max to get all the testing done. That could be tested by a psychologist, um, by occupational therapists, speech therapist like myself, physical therapist, educational testing done by a diagnostician sometimes. And so within those 60 days, that is what's happening. I've seen a lot of times parents think that that process happens quicker. Most times it doesn't, because you are asking and required by law to have testing done by more than one specialist, right? So you're asking the speech therapist to test, the educational diagnostician, and maybe the psychologist does some testing. That's three different people that are usually working in multiple schools, holding their own caseload, that 60 days is needed in order to fit it all in and have time to have to write the report and then also have the eligibility meeting too. So think about this now. If we're at the top of the year, we're halfway through the school year, we're at the top of 2026. If the school gives 60 to 65 days for this testing to be completed, we are now January and February are gone. Now we're in March. March would be the earliest that you could expect to get results back from that testing. And then after that, say they do qualify for special education services. The school then has another 30 days to get an IEP in place. So now you've eaten up two months. So now we're in March where they say, okay, yes, they qualify. Now they have another 30 days to get an IEP in place. Now we're in April. Uh most school districts have spring break sometime between the end of March, the beginning of April. So that's a whole week gone. Now the IEP gets in place. We're almost to the end of the school year. So the faster you can voice your concerns to the school, the better. Because waiting until the end of the school year, closer to the end of the school year, has just had that whole school year be, I don't want to say a waste. I shouldn't say a waste, but a detriment to the child, right? Because now they have gone a full school year without the support that they need. And so now that IEP is really going to be impactful mostly for the next school year. So from concerns to services starting, families can often experience a three, four-month time span before an IEP could get in be put in place. And that's only if your kid is found eligible for special education services. So there are some things that speed up the process and can slow down the process. So things that speed it up are typically going to be that written request, not just coming in and having a meeting to talk about your concerns, but actually writing out your request for a special education evaluation, parents being organized with your documentation, giving clear examples of that educational impact, being persistent and consistent in your communication, and attending the meetings. When you don't attend the meetings to get parent consent signed, you basically just kick in the can down the road. Do not miss the meetings. Most times now, especially since COVID, you can participate virtually. If getting from work to the school is an issue and you're just not sure if you can make it there on time, ask if you can participate virtually by Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, whatever. Or ask if you can participate by phone so that you're not slowing down the process. So speeding it up, you need to have those things ready. That supporting documentation that I told you, you need to have specific examples. It cannot be one test that your kid bombed. It just can't be that. That's not enough. It's gonna have to be more. Um, some other things that kind of slow it down, kind of the opposite of what I just said that speeds it up, really. Missing paperwork, inconsistent attendance at these meetings, disagreements without documentation, this over-reliance on wait and see. Let's just wait and see. I've said at the table many times when parents come in and say, I'm really concerned. I think my kid needs special education. That is not a request. Most times the school's gonna respond and say, What are your concerns? What are you seeing? And if you don't have all of your information together, you're gonna start grasping at small things that you've seen, but not really communicating concisely with specific examples about your concerns. And many times the school gives this wait and see response. Well, let's try some intervention. For six weeks, we're gonna try intervention. Now you've just eaten up another month and a half. Yes, it does take time to see if an intervention is gonna work because we don't want to over-identify kids for special education services. But if we over-rely on this wait and see, you're eating up time, and the school year is only nine months. So you don't want to really over-rely on that. Um, that response to intervention process without seeing progress is a red flag right there. Hey, my kids have been in this intervention for four weeks now. We haven't seen much progress. I want to go ahead and get this evaluation started because you don't want to delay it if that is inevitably what is needed. I've talked to parents before, like, okay, well, I met with the school, they said they're gonna do intervention, and they're gonna see how my child does with um spelling, with reading, with math, whatever the case may be, for the next six weeks, and then we're gonna meet back. That's a long time. That's a long time. So I'll leave it up to you as a parent to say, okay, that's good enough. But if you feel like it's not, and after four weeks, you're like, hey, listen, we haven't seen much progress, and we're already four weeks into this. That's when you can assert yourself, advocate for your child. Remember, collaboration is key. We're not there slamming our fists down, making demands, even though I've seen that happen in schools. We are there to collaborate with the school because both of the school and the parent want the same outcome for the student to be successful. So thinking about what could speed up the process or what could slow the process down, just be sure to keep that in mind because you don't want to be the reason that things didn't get rolling because you missed the meeting or you came to the meeting and didn't have all your ducks in a row, so to speak. You didn't have any specific examples. The school is going to be looking for data to really support, you know, that initiation for testing. And schools really look for patterns, they're not looking for perfection. So helpful, helpful data would be grades and standardized assessments, um, teacher input and observations, work samples, behavior logs, attendance data, progress monitoring data, and then parent input, of course. But parents often um kind of underestimate the power of emails, home observations, developmental history, and those patterns of regression. Don't underestimate that. The power of an email, you want to establish a line of documentation that supports your concerns. So wait all the way to January and then say, you know, since October, I've been really concerned about blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't do that. Communicate effectively and communicate consistently. Hey, it's October. I'm really kind of concerned about, you know, math. Be specific. Multiplication. We talk about division, math as a whole. Be specific and be consistent in your communication. So it doesn't seem like it just comes out of nowhere to the school. And now you're going back and bringing up, like they say, old stuff that does matter, but it's old. You want to be sure to communicate those in the moment. Any observations you see at home, you know, homework time, they're struggling, there's tears, there's acting out, there's complete confusion for homework. Give specific examples. Also, talk about developmental history. If you're the grandparent of the child and you know that mom suffered from substance abuse while the child was in utero, mention that. If you know that before you got custody of the child as the grandparent, that the child moved around from foster home to foster home, mention that. It is important, it is an important piece of data to share. I know sometimes you don't want to share too much of your business, but sometimes that comes in helpful. Okay. And then any regression patterns. And by regression, I mean a skill that a child had that they are seen to be losing. Like they were able to, I don't know, write in full sentences, and now they're being asked to write in paragraph form, and now their sentences are choppy, incomplete. Maybe with math, they were able to do adding and subtracting, and now they're doing, you know, multiplication, and it seems like they're having a super hard time if they have to do a multiplication problem where they have to carry a number and add that up. Like, think about where you've seen skills and where they have slowly kind of become minimal or not as progressive as you might hope. Data, data, data, data, data, data. Documentation can serve as data. So make sure that you are keeping the school abreast of any concerns that you have throughout the school year. If you've been getting reports from the teacher, hey, today, so and so acted out, today, so-and-so shut down. Keep those emails, keep those communication notes. Snap a picture of it with your phone. Bring that as data because that is really going to be helpful if you have any pushback from the school on whether or not this kid needs to be tested for um special education services. So, reasons to initiate that testing can look like academic delays despite the intervention. Remember, we talked about that, speech and language difficulties, struggles in math or reading. Maybe they have a challenge with attention, regulating their emotions, maybe that regulating their behavior. Also, if they have sensory or motor difficulty, think uh walking, think handwriting, using scissors, especially for kids who are younger, social emotional challenges, remember, regression or stagnation, and then significant discrepancy between what they're able to do and what they are demonstrating. So that ability versus performance. That is gonna be really, really important. Some red flag language to listen for. Maybe if you're in the meeting and the teacher says, you know, he's really trying, but fill in the blank. She understands verbally, but when we write it out, it's not so much understanding going on. Or if the school says, you know, we've done interventions and progress is really minimal. If you hear any of that type of language, those are the red flags that testing needs to be done. Don't if you have this deep feeling that your kid may need special education services, don't let the school's input deter you from getting the help that your child needs. Maybe they test your kid, and the ultimate decision at the eligibility meeting is they don't need any special education services. Sometimes that does happen. That is okay too, because that's information that you have now. Now you can hold on to the information from those reports, ask the school to put some additional supports in place for your child, even though they're not in special ed. There are still things that can be done in the classroom. And maybe in the next school year you come back. You're like, listen, this is where we were last school year, and we have made minimal progress from here. You did the interventions in class, minimal progress. I want to revisit the special education testing again. And that whole process can be initiated again. Remember, I talked to you about IDEA disability categories. So there are quite a few categories that your kid can be found eligible under. I actually did a uh Tuesday talks a while back, now close to the beginning of the school year, talking about these disability categories and the IEP process. So go back and check that out for more details on these. But specific learning disability, speech and language impairment, autism, other health impairment, emotional disturbance, intellectual disability, developmental delay, which is for kids who are younger, like think, you know, head start age, preschool age, hearing impairment, visual impairment, deafblindness, orthopedic impairment, traumatic brain injury, and multiple disabilities. It's a long list, it's a lot to remember, but the key thing here is eligibility is about educational impact, not labels. And you may be surprised how many times I talk with even some of my own family members who are very dismissive of special education testing. I don't want my kid labeled, I don't want that on my kids' school records gonna follow them forever. Let me tell you something. Imagine being your kid sitting in a classroom all day, not understanding anything that's going on. Imagine. Put yourself in their situation, put yourself in their shoes, in their actual desk. Put yourself in that moment. Day after day, there's a teacher talking at the front, and you're not understanding much or any of what that teacher is saying. Imagine how that feels and ask yourself who cares what is on your child's record? There are kids who have IEPs for almost their entire public school career and go on to college. Colleges also offer accommodations for their students, it's required. So don't let this threat of your kid being labeled deter you from getting them the help that they need because they're gonna be sitting in class lost, and all that's gonna happen is they're gonna get further and further and further and further behind to the point where it is almost impossible to catch up. Remember that pacing guide? The train is constantly moving, it rarely slows down to let people catch up. The train just keeps on moving. So you are like making the problem worse by saying, I don't want my kid to have a label. Listen, that's the way the system is set up. You gotta get a label to get the service. So you're gonna play the game the way it's been set up to be played, or are you gonna let your kid just sit and be lost? That's a personal choice. I'll tell you what I would do, but it is a personal choice. Most oftentimes, you know, if you think back to the list of the disability categories like deaf, visual, deaf or blindness, visual impairment, hearing impairment, orthopedic impairment, traumatic brain injury, those are ones that stand out and are really clear. Like, you know, it might even be visible from the out person on the outside looking in that something is going on with your child. They have challenges, and and then the school really does jump on it in those cases to get testing initiated. But sometimes what parents often miss in addition to overfocusing on the label is focusing on the score and the category that their child has been found eligible for. And instead, I want you to focus on present levels of performance, functional impact, service minutes, goals that are tied to real needs, progress monitoring, and what services look like day to day. All of those things I just named are part of the IEP. And if you're like, I don't know what any of that means, go back to my My Kid Has an IEP episode, and I break down each one of those areas for you, and I even put together a nice PDF that explains each area as well. And you can have that for free and print it off, share it, laminate it, whatever you want to do to help you understand what each of those areas are because that's where the focus is. Getting the um special education testing done, that's half the battle. That is literally half the battle. That is the starting point. Congratulations, you got testing done. Your child has been found eligible for special education services. You're now at the starting line because the IEP is the finish line. Getting that IEP is the finish line, and making sure that that individualized education plan is specific to your child, tied to goals that meet real needs and that are really looking at that functional impact and making sure that those services are being carried out day to day. That is the one thing that I think parents forget about. You jump the hurdle of getting the testing done, you feel like you crossed the finish line when you got the IEP. Checking to make sure that IEP is being enforced on a daily basis is also part of your job as a parent. We cannot just fully completely trust that the school is doing everything that they're supposed to, not because they're being shady or not trying to help your child. The schools are busy. Schools are busy. Staff leave, staff get sick, staff where you know, teaching is a female-driven field. They get pregnant, have babies, they go out on maternity leave. Who's stepping in to fill in the gap? These are questions you have to ask, and you can only ask those if you're monitoring what's going on day to day. So I know I talked about testing being this iterative process. It's not a one and done. It's not, I got them tested and now they don't have to be tested again. They are required by law, schools are to have a child reevaluated at least every three years. Some not sometimes that's formal testing, sometimes it's just a review of their records to see what they have been working on, the impact that that has made, progress, maybe regression. But as a parent, you can also request a reevaluation earlier, earlier than the three years if you want to. And you would do that if the child's needs change, if they develop some skills, if services need to be adjusted, and goals evolve. And so maybe they met their goals on their IEP. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're done with the special education process. That could just mean that there are other areas that the child also needs support in, and that can only be determined through additional testing. So you have the right to start that testing process all over again. The most important thing that I want to leave you with is how parents can support learning at home. Critical. It is critical because you don't have to be a teacher, have a teaching background, be a therapist, be a psychologist. You are powerful in your own right as the parent. You're spending time with your kids in the evening, on weekends, on school breaks, school holidays, and you can focus on creating consistent routines, having language-rich conversations. We're not talking to kids when baby talk, we're talking to them at adult vocabulary. And maybe they ask, what does that mean? My son asked me that the other day. So talking to them with this language-rich conversation, reading together, giving visual supports. If you have a routine, especially for the little ones or maybe even older kids that just have low cognitive skills, creating visual supports. Here's the routine. I'm gonna take pictures of you doing each thing so that you can see what it is you're supposed to be doing, because maybe they can't read the list that you put together that reflects their morning routine or their evening routine. Giving positive reinforcement at home really helps as well. Carrying over school strategies, which you cannot do if you are not in conversation or communication with your child's teacher. And then also collaboration. We don't want to be duplicating services and duplicating things that aren't working in schools. We want to collaborate to know where we can fit in as parents with our kids at home. So ask your kids' teachers, what can I reinforce at home? What can I do at home to help carry over what you all have been doing in school? And maybe that's just as simple as sitting with them with their homework. And maybe you feel intimidated by that because as the parent, your kid's in sixth grade, and the math is beyond what you can do as a parent. I'm there. I'm there. It's okay for you to ask for that additional help. It's okay for you to be honest in those situations. Like, you know, you said to do this to help my kid at home, but that really is something that I'm having trouble doing. What's something else I can do? Have the conversation. So, in closing, I just want to say special education is not about lowering expectations, it's about providing access. So if you're on the fence about whether or not you want your kid to be labeled, really think about that. We're not lowering the expectations, we're giving them access. Remember, the train, that pacing guide train is rolling. We're providing them access to it by finding ways for them to be successful in school, by differentiating how material is presented to them, what it looks like, what it sounds like, when it happens, and just knowing that the most effective outcomes happen when parents stay informed, when schools are collaborative, when data guides decisions, and when support is proactive, not reactive. As parents, you are never asking for too much. You're asking for what your child needs. So I really hope that if you found this episode to be enlightening, that you share it with another parent. Tag me on social media at Dr. Tiffany SLP. Drop any questions that you may have in the comments. I'll be turning them, turning those questions that you have into future episodes because I really feel like I'm speaking from a place of experience, but I also know that there are a lot of new experiences out there that parents have. And I want to be able to help bring light to that and support your growth as a parent as well. So I really hope you found this episode to be helpful. Remember all the social media things like, share, subscribe, all that great stuff. Please go ahead and do it. And with that, I will see you next week for a brand new Tuesday docs. Bye. Be sure to share this episode and join me next week for a brand new Tuesday.