The document discusses guidelines and best practices for conducting evaluations of children who may need special education services. It outlines steps for identifying children for evaluation, conducting a full and individualized evaluation using various assessment tools, and techniques for interviewing parents and observing the child. The evaluation aims to determine the child's needs, guide decision-making about educational programming, and ensure parents provide informed consent to the evaluation.

1. Collecting Information
Informed Decisions are Right Decisions
Manisha Verma

2. Purpose of Gathering
Information
• To see if the child is a “child needs special
intervention.”
• To gather information that will help
determine the child’s educational/
therapeutic needs
• To guide decision making about appropriate
educational programming for the child.

3. Identifying Children for Evaluation
• Parents may request that their child be
evaluated.
• The school system may ask to evaluate the
child
Procedural guidelines:
Notify parents in writing
Before the school may proceed with the
evaluation, parents must give their informed
written consent.

4. The Scope of Evaluation
• A child’s initial evaluation must be full and
individual, focused on that child and only
that child.
• The evaluation must use a variety of
assessment tools and strategies
• Reports from other therapists, counselors,
and Special Educators reports and
evaluation data must be referred to.

5. Techniques of Assessment
• Interview Parents
 Primary Source
• Records previous/professional reports –
Must be able to interpret
 Be careful of predisposition bias
• Observe the child
 It starts from the first moment of interaction

6. The art of history taking
• Basis of a true history is good communication
• Important to acquire good consultation skills
which go beyond prescriptive history taking
• A good history is one which reveals the client’s
ideas, concerns, and expectations as well as
any accompanying diagnosis.
• Listening is at the heart of good history taking.
• It takes practice, patience, understanding and
concentration

7. Interview skills
• Clinical Setting
allowing for good eye contact, enabling easy
access to computers or notes and avoiding
'distance'
Take care with the opening greeting, as this
can set the scene for what follows. It may
assist or inhibit rapport.
Take care not to let the gadgets intrude on
the consultation.

8. Interview skills
• Clinician Skills
Aim to Create an Alliance
Empathy, Genuineness, respect , warmth,
immediacy, tolerance, transparency, skillful
validation, patience, Paraphrasing
Do not deal from authoritative position .
Gain understanding of Client’s Focus of
Treatment (FOT)
Time Management
Avoid:
Assumptions
Preconceived ideas
Biases

9. Interview skills
• Listen first and listen second
 Let the client tell you the story they have been
storing up for you
 Important to be able to ask discriminating,
delineating questions go back to this overall
picture and break down any aspects of the history
that you need to from there.
 Listening does not just involve using your ears.
Also use facial expression, body language and
verbal fluency
 To use questioning and clarification of details to
'draw out' the history.

10. What questions?
• Open questions
• They do not suggest a 'right' answer to the
patient and give them a chance to express what
is on their mind.
• Questions with options
• This technique must be used with care as there
is a danger of getting the answer you wanted
rather than what the client meant
• Leading questions
• These are best avoided if at all possible. They
tend to lead the client down an avenue that is
framed by your own assumptions.

11. Sensitive Questions Guidelines
• Respect patient privacy
• Be direct and firm
• Avoid confrontation
• Be nonjudgmental
• Use appropriate language
• Document carefully
 Use patient’s words as much as possible

12. Interview Do’s and Don’t s
• Inquire if you can help with any immediate requirement/
needs
• Good Eye Contact
• Posture Matching/ Cross Matching
• Avoid Second Guessing
• Listen more Talk less - but keep the flow goal oriented
• Do not Lecture or Educate
• No personal Experiences to be discussed
• Do not take the bait - Become aggressive or sarcastic
• Identify inconsistencies
• No Technical Jargon
• Clarify Responses - Do not move on too quickly

13. A smart mother makes often a better diagnosis
than a poor doctor.
August Bier (1861–1949)

14. Initial Contact Interview Structure
• Personal /Demographic Data
 Age, Name , Sex, Education, Economic status
• Informant Information
 Name , Relationship, Age , Occupation, Income
 Your impression of the reliability of information
• Reason for referral
 The immediate reason for being referred to you.
• Presenting complaints and Duration
 Brief and verbatim
 History of presenting complaints

15. Initial Contact Interview
• History of presenting complaints
 A description of the symptoms and their duration,
including:
 how the symptoms began, and
 how the symptoms changed with time (e.g. Increasing
gradually or stepwise /remained the same/episodic in
nature)
 Changes in biological functions (e.g. Sleep, appetite,
weight)
 Affect of symptoms on patient’s relationships, day to
day activity and work
 Association between symptoms and any stressors or
events
 Any other relevant information

16. Initial Contact Interview
• Family history:
 age and occupations of parents and the parent’s
relationship with one another
 general information about siblings
 the patient’s relationship with his parents and
siblings
 social standing of the family
 history of psychiatric illness, suicide or disability
or substance misuse in the family
 Any other relevant information

17. Initial Contact Interview
• Personal history:
 Antenatal and birth history
 Mother’s general health during pregnancy
• Early developmental history
 Cover major milestones like sitting, crawling,
standing, walking, babbling, first words, eating by self
• Health in childhood
 Any major illnesses, fits, febrile convulsions
 Potential for hereditary diseases
 Was the illness episodic? Or was the child
continuously unwell? Nature of treatment received,
and response to treatment? why ?

18. Initial Contact Interview
• Social Communication Assessment:
 Eye contact
 Time place space orientation
 Conflicts with peers
 Low interpersonal engagement
 Implied social rules
 Frequently switches subjects
 Incomprehensible speech/language

19. Initial Contact Interview
• Functional Assessment
• Appearance and behavior:
 General appearance
 Posture and movement
 Eye Hand co-ordination
 Gross motor/ Fine Motor skills
 Attitude towards examiner/environment
• Caution
 Denial of opportunity
 Socio-economic background

20. Initial Contact Interview
• Behavioral History
 Aggressive/calm
 Unpredictable
 Temper tantrums
 Eating habits
 Does not like to be touched
 Withdrawn/shy
 Overly sensitive
• Cognitive Assessment
 Attention and concentration
 Memory – short term and long term
 Intelligence

21. Initial Contact Interview
• Educational History
 Previous consultations/Teacher’s opinion
 Previous IEP
 Any BIP
 Academic/ Pre-Academic Activities
 Difficulties in classroom
 Detailed Antecedents and precedents

22. Initial Contact Interview
• Identify Strengths and Weaknesses of the child
• Identify Likes and Dislikes (Rewards)
• Note down any other points you would like to
discuss further.
• Psycho education

23. Observation
• Identify patterns to a student’s behavior
• Patterns help us predict future occurrences of an
identified behavior.
• In turn, this helps us implement more effective and
efficient interventions (eg. time of day, time of week,
type of class or setting, etc…).
 RTI - Response to Intervention
 BIP - When a BIP is written for a student, must be
able to Quantitatively describe the identified target
behavior Before, During, and After an intervention has
been utilized.
• Descriptions :Quantitative (encouraged) vs.
Qualitative (discouraged)

24. Points to Remember
• Who is ____________?
 Describe child, including such information as place in
the family, personality, likes and dislikes.
• 2. What are __________’s strengths?
 Highlight all areas where child does well, including
school, home, community, and social settings.
• 3. What are ________’s successes?
 List all successes, no matter how small.
• 4. What are ________’s greatest challenges?
 List the areas where child has the greatest difficulties.
• 5. What are _________’s needs?
 List the skills child needs to work on and the supports
he or she needs.

25. Points to Remember
• 6. What are parents dreams for ?
 Describe parent’s vision for child’s future, including
short-term and long-term goals.
• 7. Other helpful information.
 List all relevant information, including health care needs,
that has not already been described above.
• Brainstorm with people
 General teacher, Family members, Tutor, Therapist,
consultant) to get ideas before the meeting. Write down
things you feel must be included in the IEP. Decide how
you want to share this information with the other
members of the IEP team.
• Ask other team members
 if they can share their ideas about child’s program

26. What can I do if PARENT’S don’t agree?
• Sometimes, the following words can help to
resolve an issue.
 “What will it take for us to reach an agreement on
this issue?”
 “Why don’t we just try this for 6 weeks and see how
it works?”
 “We can all agree that this is not an easy issue. But
we need to find a solution that will work for child. that
we can all live with.”
 “I just don’t see this as being appropriate for child.
There have to be other options we haven’t looked
at.”
• Communicate this in a reasonable and calm way.

27. Appropriate Reaction Techniques
• Simple Reflection
 It’s okay if you think child does not have a problem at
present. We can work on why others find it difficult to
work with him
• Shifting Focus
 A teacher described a child as obstinate
 I see him to be a persistent child

28. Appropriate Reaction Techniques
• Reframing
 How many times do you think he disturbs the
class? Which particular class?
 It does not look like it is all the time. It is in this
particular period or time frame?

29. Conclusion
 Try to let clients tell you their story freely.
 When you use questions, try to keep them as
open as possible.
 Use all your senses to ‘Listen'.
 Check that what you think is wrong is what your
patient thinks is wrong.
 Keep an open mind and always ask yourself if
you're making assumptions.
 Be prepared to reconsider the causes of
symptoms that you or a colleague have decided
upon.

30. Conclusion
• Summarise
 give the client a run-down of what they've told
you as you understand it.
 Sharing understanding
 a good idea to ask the client if there's anything
they want to ask you at the end of a interview.
 Fix a date and time for follow up.

31. Thank You