Angela's Re-Evaluation

Yesterday, I went to a meeting to discuss the re-evaluation tests that Angela took at the beginning of the school year. Every three years, Mesa Schools needs to evaluate Angela to determine if she qualifies to continue to attend the Special Ed Program that she is in. This is the third evaluation done by Mesa Public Schools and the least stressful one for Angela and myself. They gave her verbal tests and non-verbal tests to determine where she stands cognitively with other kids her age. The verbal test ranked Angela very low, much lower than she actually performs in school. The school psychologist mentioned that she gets extremely distracted during a verbal test. Angela likes to talk and probably didn't pay attention and got sidetracked. That's so Angela. Because the verbal tests were so low, they gave her a non-verbal test (NO TALKING) to determine her cognitive abilities. She scored well and received a score of average when ranked with her peers. Her performance in the classroom is much lower than she is capable of doing, hence the reason she qualifies for the Special Ed program. Language, not speech, slows Angela down and limits what she understands, especially receptive language (hearing and understanding). The Special Ed program that she is enrolled in is helping her work through those language barriers. It was a very positive meeting and the results were what I had anticipated. We are so lucky to have this wonderful program to help Angela. She is an amazing girl and there are so many people who have helped her along the way.