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Hello everyone and welcome to the What in the World is Dyscalculia podcast.

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I am your host, Dr. Honora Wall and the podcast is sponsored by Educalc Learning.

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You can visit educalclearning.com for lots of information, training, free resources,

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and access to ask questions about Dyscalculia, the math learning disability, and other things

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related to mathematical struggles.

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I also encourage you to stop by www.thedtri.org and check out the Dyscalculia Training and

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Research Institute and see what kind of things we've got going on over there.

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Lots of free resources through our non-profit arm as well.

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And today in the podcast, this is really going to be the first of many shows about this topic.

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I want to talk a little bit about trends in the evaluation process and that school screening

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process.

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It's a complex topic and got some guests lined up for future shows.

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Some psychologists who can help speak directly to the issue of training required to administer

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a true evaluation that can screen for different learning disabilities among other issues.

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Now this is very complex in depth which is why I'm not going to try to squish it all into

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one episode but I want to give you some highlights of trends that concern me at this time.

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So let's start at the beginning.

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Why would a person need an evaluation?

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What is an evaluation?

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What am I even talking about?

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Well when we notice that children are struggling in school more than we think they should based

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on their intellectual abilities, then we say well it looks like there might be a problem

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here and if there is a problem then we want to make sure they get the right resources,

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interventions, and accommodations to be successful.

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It's the learning equivalent of screening vision to see whether or not a person needs

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to wear prescription glasses or maybe they just need readers or maybe they can see just

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fine and there's something else we want to address.

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Same thing happens with learning differences especially in students who are neurodivergent.

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Science includes autism, ADHD, executive function issues, and the specific learning disorders,

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dyscalculia, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia.

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And the problem a lot of people run into across the country is that it's hard to get evaluated.

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There are many reasons for that.

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Sometimes school districts or school personnel at your local school aren't sure what the legal

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requirements are.

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They're pretty clear.

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Federal law is pretty straightforward on this issue and has been for a very long time.

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The idea act addresses the need for evaluations done by trained, qualified professionals.

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Emphasis is important there and you can look more into that online if you have any questions

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about the idea act.

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Evaluations can be expensive.

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Trained professionals are booked sometimes six or nine months out.

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It can be hard to get an appointment.

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Some districts have school psychologists and some do not.

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And people have different levels of training and awareness.

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This is all also very brand new.

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Dyscalculia is a very complex evaluation piece for dyscalculia especially.

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So there are a lot of adults and older students who have never been properly evaluated or

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just in their 30s, 40s, 50s got an evaluation and realized they have dyscalculia.

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So we have a lot of people with a lot of questions and a lot of concerns who are not getting

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a lot of adequate appropriate help.

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This is just something we are going to keep working on.

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Awareness will change things.

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Having more people enter the field of psychology or neurology so they can become trained to

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administer evaluations.

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That will help.

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Those of course are long term solutions.

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And everyone is looking for short term solutions because children are struggling right now

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and we want to help them.

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However, I am seeing a trend and I am doing a little more research to get my ducks in a

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row and my vetted, qualified research, my documentation and facts together.

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I don't want to spread any misinformation.

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But I am hearing a lot of chatter that different states are using their education agencies

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to help with the evaluation process for suspected learning disabilities.

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And this is a huge red flag.

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This is a real problem area that we need to address.

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There are many ways that a school or an education agency can screen for suspected learning disabilities.

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And there are a lot of things that go into a special education evaluation process at

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the team based school level.

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Those include lots of different pieces of documentation, lots of different evidence.

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Questionnaires, parents, questionnaires with teachers, interviews between the student and

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a special education director or a school supervisor or a school counselor sometimes.

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And then an analysis of classroom assessments, performance on state testing, the difference

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between how a student speaks in class and how they perform on a paper and pencil or

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a computer based test.

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All of these different things are taken into consideration to try to determine whether or

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not we need to do further testing.

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If we need further testing, this is where we want to be very careful with what kind of

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testing students are getting and who is administering these tests.

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The only way to truly know whether or not a student probably has a learning disability

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is through a psychological or neuropsychological evaluation.

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Even that can be iffy because not everyone is trained to read those things the same exact

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way.

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There is a lot of personal interpretation based on the part of the person administering

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it.

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I'll save those stories for a different podcast.

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I would love for there to be more training on administering, interpreting and evaluating

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for dyscalculia.

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That is a big need in the world of psychology and neurology.

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But that will be a talk for a different day.

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The tests that are included in the true professional evaluation include a number of intelligence

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tests, behavioral tests, cognitive tests and achievement tests.

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You'll hear a lot of words about Woodcock Johnson or the Wexler test, WISC, Stanford

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B'nai, there are a few different ones out there that are commonly used.

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That gives us a baseline and overall look at abilities.

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There are also a lot of very specific tests underneath that.

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Woodcock Johnson test of achievement, wide range achievement test.

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Tests with a lot of letters involved, C-C-P-T, Cort, CVL-T, ASDS and those will look for

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things like attention, language, memory and learning, motor control, visual spatial, autism,

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executive function, behavioral, reading, mathematical computation, mathematical understanding,

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processing speed, fluid reasoning.

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There's a lot that goes into determining whether or not a learning disability is present.

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It's very important that these tests are administered and interpreted by a trained professional.

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Let me talk for a quick minute about what is even involved in becoming a trained professional

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who can administer and read these tests.

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First of all, you've got to be a doctor.

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You have to have already completed your doctoral degree in psychology or in neurology.

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Second, you have to already be done with your year of supervised clinical experience.

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Then, you have to already have licensure.

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You have to already be certified to practice as a psychologist or neurologist.

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After that, you can apply and you have to show that you have documented training and

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knowledge in eight different knowledge areas.

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You have to prove that you've already gone through your postdoc training.

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You have to have a lot of documented hours.

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Some programs, over 1,600 hours of clinical experience that has been supervised before

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you can even get into being fully prepared and approved for being a trained psychologist

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or neuropsychologist, getting your board certification, showing that you know how to properly do this

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work.

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There are some very important reasons for that.

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One is that these tests are valid because they are standardized.

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That means that to the best extent possible, every single person who takes this test anywhere

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in the country is going to have the most exact experience, exactly the same as is humanly

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possible.

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A lot of the training is in how do you administer, how do you remove your own bias, how do you

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not accidentally influence the test-taking experience?

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Then you have to have a lot of training in interpreting and analyzing results.

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You cannot hand someone the whisk and an answer key and have them just give it to a fifth

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grader and then score it against the answer key and then decide whether or not a learning

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disability is present.

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Completely inappropriate, not valid, and dangerous, frankly, because we are muddying

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the waters of test validity and we are not getting accurate information.

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With all the information I have just given you, I can tell you I am not qualified to

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administer or interpret any of these tests.

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I am not a psychologist.

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I am not a neurologist.

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Not a neuropsychologist.

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I do have my doctorate in education.

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So I can speak to curriculum and instruction.

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I can speak to educational research and I can speak to the experience of creating a bridge

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between research, between evaluations, and the classroom experience or learning experience.

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But I stay in my lane.

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This is very important that states do not push education professionals out of their

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lane and into the role of test administer or interpreter.

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It is completely inappropriate.

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It is not what we do.

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That is not our field and it is not our training.

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We have tons of training and we have a very important field and we have a very specific

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lane to be in that is vitally important and should be recognized on its own grounds.

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We should stop asking educators to ignore education and ignore their training and education

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to do all of this other work that should be done by different professionals.

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Not better but certainly different.

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If you had a broken foot, you probably don't want to go to an ENT because they are eye,

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ear, nose, and throat.

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Not so much involved in fixing your broken foot.

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We need to use the right people for the right situations.

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This is something that some states are moving away from because they are pushing this kind

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of work on to special education directors, area education agencies, different educational

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groups that cover professional development training, not evaluation.

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Of course, on the other hand, here is part of the problem.

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Schools do have a different kind of evaluation process that they use.

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We have the same word but it has very different meaning depending on the context.

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A psychological or neuro-psychological evaluation is going to be very different.

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That assessment is very different than what we mean when we talk about a school-based

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evaluation process and school-based assessments.

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The school evaluation process is going to include teacher recommendations, classroom observations,

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test results, including both summative and formative.

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It's going to include project assessments and the rubrics and whether or not children

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met a rubric.

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It's going to include parent observations.

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It's an entirely different conversation than what happens through the first evaluation I

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was talking about.

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It's really important for parents to understand the difference between these two so that you

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know whether or not your student is getting what they need and what they are supposed

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to have.

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It's really important for schools to understand these differences so that we are offering

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the correct screening and evaluation process and that we are not leaving things to chance

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and we are not putting testing on to people who are not appropriately trained to do it.

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I think this is going to be a growing problem mostly because there simply aren't enough

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people to administer evaluations in a timely fashion for all the people who have a need

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for it.

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We are already seeing that.

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It's also a growing problem because I've talked with quite a few groups of people and we are

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discussing how getting diagnosis and appropriate support for dyscalculia is really turning

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into an affluent white situation.

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If you have the money and you have the access then you are probably going to get the correct

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evaluation and help a lot faster.

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We already had a social justice component to this because we have such a large group

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of people around 5 million K-12 students in the United States alone.

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That doesn't even talk about the adults facing this issue or people in other countries but

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a huge group of people who are not being properly recognized and served.

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That is already a big problem.

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If we start really seeing a separation based on socioeconomic conditions now we have an

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even bigger problem.

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Of course the way to address some problems is to try to get help right away and that's

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why I think some places are turning too.

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Any port in a storm let's just buy the booklet for this test, buy the scoring guide and answer

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key and let someone just administer this test to this student so that we can move ahead.

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The problem is that is not correct, that is not appropriate, we are not getting good data.

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Then that means we are not going to get good services.

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So I want you to make sure you know what is going on in your school district and when

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someone says they are going to put your child or your student if you are the teacher or

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the school administrator that you are going to be given an evaluation to determine eligibility.

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I want you asking some questions exactly what is included in the evaluation, what kind of

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assessments, what kind of evaluation, who is doing it.

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What is their training and background, that is a perfectly valid question to ask.

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You are not being rude if you say can I ask who is going to be administering and scoring

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that test.

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If the answer is well we have classroom assessments and they are going to be graded and interpreted

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by the classroom teacher.

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Fantastic, exactly that is who is supposed to do it.

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We are also going to have some screeners and some things that will help us identify if

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we think it is really an issue related to dyscalculia because we are looking at processing speed,

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subatization, we are looking at computational skills and basic facts and to see whether

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or not they hit an appropriate grade level and those sort of screeners can be given by

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a wide variety of people.

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Hopefully you are already using the free one that TouchMath put out because it is fantastic

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but there are a lot of people who can administer something like that and make sure the screening

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happens and interpret it.

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Not a problem.

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If they say well we are going to do an evaluation specifically looking for autism, ADHD, executive

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function, learning disabilities, okay pause, that needs to be the school psychologist,

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an outside psychologist or a neuropsychologist.

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That is it, it is a very small group of people who are appropriately trained to create the

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testing atmosphere, administer the test properly using given conditions, avoiding their own

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bias or influencing the test and who know how to read the results and interpret.

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It is not just oh you got this score and that puts you in this percentile, what does that

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mean and what does it mean in the context of all of the other tests and the percentiles

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that came back for these different areas.

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So just make sure that you know, make sure you are asking those questions and if you

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are not happy with the answers, know that you can request different evaluations and that

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they are going to be administered by the appropriate people.

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And if you are in a school or in a district, please make sure you are doing that as well

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and let's make sure we are getting the right kind of data so that we can use it properly.

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That is how we are going to get help for people who have dyscalculia or not.

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Not everyone has dyscalculia, it is only about 8, maybe 10 percent of the population.

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So some of these evaluations are going to come back as saying alright we see something but

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it is not this.

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That is fine, that is completely valid.

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We need to make sure that we are not missing the 8 to 10 percent who have dyscalculia because

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for those people they are never going to move forward and reach the success they are capable

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of without the right support in place.

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If you would like to know more about that support, if you would like to know more about

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the evaluation process or you have other questions about dyscalculia, please reach out to me.

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I am pretty easy to find.

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You can email me at Honora at educalclearning.com.

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Also you can email me Honora at thedtri.org.

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You can find me on tiktok, instagram, youtube, check out either of the websites.

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We have a support group page for teachers and that is a public page.

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So lots of information that we try to give out for free as often as possible.

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I am Dr. Honora Wall and I really appreciate you spending the time to listen to the What

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in the World is Dyscalculia Podcast today.

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I hope you got a lot of good information out of this one and we will revisit this topic

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with other experts in the future so we can hear what they have to say.

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Thanks for listening.