A Parent’s Guide to Assessment

Psychologists and school teams often refer students for “an assessment” and then hand over some names and phone numbers.  Job done: parents have the info, and the referral has been made.  Easy, peasy, right?!  Recognizing the flaw in this approach, and the need to educate parents about the assessment (and reassessment!) process, The Organization for Autism Research (OAR) coupled with Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center (SARRC) and Danya International have created a guide to assessment that should be mandatory reading for anyone considering a psychological evaluation.

Life Journey through Autism: A Parent’s Guide to Assessment is a FREE book available for download or in hardcopy via OAR. This book’s 4 chapters include Defining Assessment, The Purposes of Assessments, Overview of Assessment Types, and Assessment Process.  Filled with examples and written in accessible language, this book suggests questions to ask, defines jargon (for example, IEP, OT, OWLS, ADOS) and actually describes the professionals and the tests they use. This well written guide demystifies the process, provides encouragement and information, and provides an organizational strategy for tracking the assessment process and the results.

A copy of this guide will be left on my coffee table in the waiting room until it is formally placed into our lending library.  Thank you to OAR for this outstanding publication.  When you check out the OAR website, see also the other great guides they publish, the research they fund, and the scholarship opportunities that await your student!