The Learning Disabilities Association is very committed to ensuring that students with disabilities receive the services they need. Articles have questioned whether parents and educators are trying to identify too many children in need of services.
LDA of Illinois is committed to ensuring that children who need special education services receive them and that those services are in accord with the individualized needs of children and are delivered by appropriately credentialed educators. With the complexity of needs that our children exhibit today, we believe that if services are needed, they should be provided based on needs determined through a comprehensive case study evaluation completed by the school district, in cooperation with the family.
We believe that when children are suspected of having a disability, there should be a case study evaluation. Efforts to delay evaluations to determine whether the children will out grow the need for help, or to wait and watch, or to try strategies that are inappropriate, must be stopped. Those efforts to delay are inappropriate and an evaluation must be conducted. It is through a multidisciplinary evaluation we can pinpoint the specific needs of the student and determine whether services are or are not needed.