Understanding Evaluations: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know

Join LD Talk for an Online Discussion: Understanding Evaluations: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know to Drive Instruction and Promote School Success

Date: April 30, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM EDT

Parents and teachers need to understand all aspects of the evaluation process in order to make decisions that will positively benefit a student being considered for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA contains very specific requirements for a student evaluation and the results will be used to make important decisions about the student's future.

Dr. Blanche Podhajski helps us unravel and understand the important questions in the evaluation process such as timing, what the proposed tests measure and what the outcomes mean when a comprehensive evaluation is conducted.

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About the Expert:
Dr. Blanche Podhajski is President and Founder of the Stern Center for Language and Learning. Established in 1983, the non-profit Stern Center provides literacy services for children and adults, professional development opportunities for educators and medical professionals, and research on best literacy practices. Dr. Podhajski is also Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences. She also is a member of the Professional Advisory Board for the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD).

Dr. Podhajski received her Ph.D. in Communication Disorders, specializing in Learning Disabilities, from Northwestern University. She holds the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech Pathology from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association.

Dr. Podhajski is the co-author of the Sounds Abound Program: Teaching Phonological Awareness in the Classroom, published by LinguiSystems. She created TIME for Teachers™, a professional development initiative to bring information about current research-proven reading interventions to classroom teachers. In collaboration with Marilyn Varricchio, Nancy Mather and Janice Sammons, Dr. Podhajski has extended TIME into Mastering the Alphabetic Principle: A Course in how we MAP speech to print for teaching reading and spelling, a robust distance learning course for primary educators soon to be published by Paul H. Brookes in a stand-alone version for personnel preparation and professional development. She has also co-authored Identification of Reading Difficulties and Best Referral Practices: A Guide for Future Physicians, a CD-ROM course for medical students.

For over 35 years, Dr. Podhajski has published and presented papers on the interrelationships between increases in teacher knowledge and children’s literacy outcomes. She also has extensive experience and has presented throughout the country on the differential diagnosis of language learning disorders.