Stress-Free IEP™: Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
In this episode of Stress-Free IEP™: Frances discusses how to better understand test results and interpret test scores with Neuropsychologist Dr. Randi Brown of Comprehensive Academic Coaching Solutions, LLC
FRANCES (⏱ 00:00:08): Hello and welcome to our first show, Stress-Free IEP with Shefter Law P.A. I am so excited to start this whole journey with you all and starting these Facebook lives and I’ve really taken a lot of time and energy trying to find the right people to share information with you all um To help educate you and empower you as families. To have the knowledge you need to walk into an IEP meeting. So today I have a very special guest Dr Randi Brown who is a neuropsychologist based in school system in New York. Welcome Randi,
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:00:47): thank you very much for having me Frances.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:00:50): We are happy to have you. Um So tell us a little bit about you, your background, what you do.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:00:56): Sure. Um I am a school neuropsychologist. Um I was a school psychologist with that title for about 25 years. I’m based in New York and I am an active school psychologist working in a school district in Westchester County, New York. Um in 2016 I went for some additional training in in school neuropsychology. And after finishing that program I earned my diploma in um the American from the American Board of School neuropsychologist. So while in school districts we have school psychologists I happen to be a school neuropsychologist um And I use my expertise and helping diagnose learning disabilities um other neurological issues and Children. Excuse me. Um May I have experience working with kids from the early intervention stage through college level over my career. And most recently I’ve taken on my role in my school district as working uh kindergarten through 12th graders I am the district wide evaluator. So that means I am in all buildings all grades and seeing I can see a five year old at 10 o’clock and one o’clock I could see a 15 year old. So um I know a lot about development. Um I know a lot about assessment and I know that one of the most important things in my practice is to ensure that parents understand what I write, they understand what the results mean. Um The content of my report how it might pertain to how their child learns different learning profiles etcetera. So um thank you for finding me and for bringing me to your show so that I could help your parents and any parents out there that really wants an explanation of what some of these scores mean etcetera.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:02:41): Thank you. And there’s the special little word that why I chose you is the neuropsychologist because I get all of the time parents that come in and like well I want a neuroscience psychological evaluation. Why won’t this will do it? That’s what I want
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:02:58): and
FRANCES (⏱ 00:02:58): I don’t fully know the difference between a neuropsychological and a regular psychological what’s the difference?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:03:06): Okay well in school districts across the country there are school psychologists. They are the ones that are in the schools and they do psychological evaluations. So when a child is referred for a testing of any kind for whatever reason the school psychologist administers at least an IQ Test so that’s what we do and um depending on the referral problem will pull in other pieces. Um We’ll do rating questionnaires for let’s say attention um for executive functioning. We have something like that we do something called Projective Testing. So if we’re looking at emotional issues and Children will do all kinds of you know depending on the tools every school psychologist has access to in their school district they might pull on one of those or a couple of those two to assess where a child is emotionally. But that’s basically a school psychological evaluation. A neuropsychological evaluation is like let’s just say taking a psychological and taking it deeper. So school districts if you ask a school district for a neuro site chances are they’re going to say they don’t do it because they don’t have school neuropsychologist on staff. A school psychologist is a required member of a school district but not school neuropsychologist. So you’re often going to have to find those kind of evaluations outside of the school district. Um And a neuropsychological evaluation is doing all the components that I said but based upon its it’s like starting at an entry level. So I’ll look at a child’s I. Q. And I’ll look at rating scales and things and if I see there’s a weakness I find something um different kinds of tests that are not normally administered in a school district and I’ll administer those to dig deeper. You know it’s not just does a child have a learning disability but kind of where in where in the child’s um learning profile and in their brain is there a certain part of um something that’s going on for example? Um I’ve done some neuroscience stuff and I’ve had some kids have some vision issues. And through testing we find out that the child needed glasses and it was never an issue or never thought that way. So what might have been um visual motor issue ended up being that once the child’s prescription was you know a new prescription came and they got that it seemed to make things better. Um Other other things come out of neuropsychiatry is it’s like it’s like taking uh it’s like going into more detail about about things but in terms of school districts and school evaluations. School psychological or the psychological evaluation um is what they’ll do is what a school district will do and most times you know that’s pretty much all you need in terms of looking if you need uh documentation and stuff for classification.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:06:02): So then the psychological is all you really need for school services but a neuro psychological might be something if you want to go into further deeper and see if outside services are needed.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:06:12): That. Yes that’s a piece of it too. But it also uh if a psychological is done um in some districts the psychologist does the educational piece as well. Um And others they just do the IQ parts and and anything related that way and then they’ll have a different team member do the educational, remember um testing goes on throughout the United States. But you know, every school district, every state may do it differently. Um So whoever does the academic piece, let’s say the child’s reading scores are a little low. Well um is that enough to see what’s going on with the child? Or do you need to do something more? And it’s usually a parent’s choice whether to to pursue that kind of piece of it. But the school district could say I did this part of the evaluation and these are the results that we have and we found a weakness. They don’t necessarily have to find out why there’s a weakness that would be more of parental preference. Um And searching that out
FRANCES (⏱ 00:07:11): understood. So got it information needed. So the scores are crazy. And I know going into meetings, parents are always like What is this, what do you mean? My child is 26% or first grade level. You know like what what do all these scores mean? Can you explain it to us in layman’s terms?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:07:36): Yes. Absolutely. And that’s not going to be an issue. Um let me just explain what a standardized test is because I think it’s important that parents understand why there’s certain tests that are given. Um when we look at what’s called a standardized test and I’m just gonna throw out a couple of acronyms because I assume if if our parents are watching they know what they are. Um you know the Wechsler tests um the WISC five which is the Wechsler individual scale for Children, the fifth edition um educational testing, the WIAT which is the Wechsler individual achievement test. Um There’s the stamford Bene which is an IQ Test. There’s the KTEA, Which is an educational test. What all of these have in common is that they are called standardized assessments. Now what and that’s why school districts and professionals use standardized assessments in determining if there’s a learning disability or not. When a test is standardized and it means that it has been researched um given given out to thousands of Children across the country and across any type of socioeconomic um factor that you can think of and what the point of doing that is so that they can come up with for like a better way of saying it an average for that particular age. Um So that you know that if I give I’m in new york and if I give a child a WISC which is the I. Test and that child has a score of 100. And then there’s a child in Wyoming. And the school psychologist in Wyoming gives that gives it a whisk and they have a child that has an IQ Of 100 standardized tests mean that I’m administering that test the same way that that psychologist in Wyoming is doing it and florida and Utah and California and maine. There’s a manual meaning it’s a standardized test. We all follow a manual, we asked the same question the same exact way in the same order we give every everything is as I said standardized. So it doesn’t matter who is administering the test in whatever state it is. It’s given the same way in this in different places. So that’s kind that’s helpful to know that when a test is developed and it’s on the market. It has already been researched by these by the testing companies that produce these tests and that they’ve been vetted. They have been sampled um with so many different Children in so many different places and then they across the country like they’ll have um you know an eastern sample, a midwestern sample of Western sample and then they compare all of these scores. I I don’t get involved with that kind of statistics. But um you know when the manual comes out it really has all of the scores and measures for that particular age for that child. So that’s where we know. So if if a child is in new york and they have an IQ Of 100. And the family moves to Wyoming and the school psychologist looks at the imbalances that I gave a WISC they’ll know that I gave it a certain way because that’s how they would give it. And that means the IQ Is 100 on that testing day. Does that make sense? That
FRANCES (⏱ 00:10:47): it does it totally makes sense. But then we come and I know they use the bell curve a lot. I remember that from
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:10:55): from
FRANCES (⏱ 00:10:55): school but I know it’s confusing for parents a lot of times because again you get these percentages, you get this grade level um Standard score scale store what is all this difference?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:11:07): Okay so I have a visual for us um that we can we can share on the screen and it is a copy of the bell curve. And what I’m going to explain to you and to all our families is what a bell curve is. Now remember when I just had a test is standardized and we come up with all these scores for Children and different things. The scores for Children fall along a bell shaped curve. And what that basically means is that it gives you an idea of what they call the distribution of the scores across the population. So if you look at the biggest part on that visual where it says average 50% of the population has an IQ And we’re just looking at IQ. For this purpose. Thank you for the era. Um Between 90 and it’s really 109. It’s 11 10 starts the next level. So so 50% of the population Has an I. q. between 90 and 109. So if you have a score anywhere in there your child’s functioning in the average range. Um If you go to um a left right thing so if you go to the high average range so um nope too over
FRANCES (⏱ 00:12:17): high up
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:12:18): um you can notice that that part of the bell curve is a little smaller. So that’s 16.1% of the population falls within with their their full I. Q. Let’s say would be between 1 10 and 1 19. Conversely on the low average side you’d have 80 to 89. And as you can see it thins out so the you don’t expect to have um most of the population with a deficient I. Q. Or a superior I. Q. Um Even on the low end and the high end most of the kids that we work with will fall in the average range. The high average range. Perhaps the low average range. So that’s kind of the distribution of scores of what we see across ages and across kids growing up. If I were to give an adult I. Q. Test it would be the same bell shaped curve. But it’s a way for us to really get a visual of understanding where I. Q. Scores fall um in our population.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:13:18): So that explains the basic number but then looking down at the percentile rank. Well I know I’ve had parents go 26
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:13:27): so what Perfect. So why don’t we go across and then we’ll talk about what I know you had addressed with me before. Great equivalents and age equivalents will do that. They’re not on the graph for a specific reason because they’re not a great those are great statistics but I will mention those in a minute. Okay so you’re reading your child’s report and they say your child has a standard score. A standard score is pretty much a way of, it’s a it’s a statistic that basically describes where your child’s performance fell. And for most tests they range in a three month range like 5 to 55 years old, five years, three months 5, 4 months old to 5 7 months 58 and etcetera etcetera. I might have gotten those numbers wrong just off the top of my head but I’m trying to illustrate, it’s like a three month range. So if a child is a standard score Ana WIAT of let’s say 88 on a sub test, they fall in the low average range. If they have a standard score of 113 then they phone the high average range. What I would recommend to parents is that if you receive a report from a school district that only has numbers whether it’s a standard score a. Scale score A. T score a central rank, whatever it is ask for what I call the classification and the classification are those words right above underscore type. So that will help you know where your child’s performance was. So as I said if a child got an 88 on a standard score the next column should say low average. So you kind of know where their score falls in the continuum. So Scales as you can see a standard score is like 90-109. So it’s it’s really in that ballpark let’s drop down a row to a scale score. Now the I. Q. Test usually use scaled scores. The achievement ones usually use standard scores. But as you can see if the child has a scaled score like on the coding sub test or vocabulary or any of those where they’re scaled score is from 8 to 11. That’s the average range. If they have a scale score of 12 or 13 there in the high average range really having an understanding of what what classification the scores fall in will absolutely help you learn how to interpret where your child’s performs compared to same aged peers. So I think that’s very important. So whether it’s a standard score or a scale score you can kind of see on this on this continuum. You know if a child unfortunately gets a scale score of two. Well we know there’s a very big problem there there’s a there’s a deficient score and that that might be something where I might say well you know what maybe we need to look into that a little further because what is so deficient on that performance. Um So that’s basically the scale score T. Scores are a whole nother or a whole another statistic. Um But some scores for example if you are ever given a Conners rating scale for example to determine whether
FRANCES (⏱ 00:16:29): or not your scale
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:16:30): is exhibiting forms of ADHD They’re the way and it’s ranked on what’s called a liquored scale. So you know how you circle 120123. And you have to circle whether your child exhibits for it might say might um my child is restless and you rank it you rank their performance well not at all A little bit a lot or very much. Then you you know you rate it you circle it you know 012 or three. You rate that statement. And then what happens after that is you you know the clinician scores it and then the raw score, the tally of whatever comes up with his compromise is correlated with a T. Score. So A T. Score again. Another just another statistic to describe where a score falls. But if a child has a T. Score of let’s say 52 that for whatever category that would be the average range. If you C. T. Scores like on the Conners, if a child gets a T. Score of 60 or above equal to 60 or above it usually means that there’s something significant to to look at. It doesn’t diagnose ADHD But it says there’s something significant there. So the higher the T. Score essentially at least if we’re looking at ADH. Is um is more significant. Um You know and and conversely I don’t really see a lot of numbers in the deficient range or the low range for the most part. But essentially on a scale of of ADHD. It might suggest that there’s just absolutely no indication at all that there is any kind of issue. Um So that would be the T. Score. Is this okay so far Frances
FRANCES (⏱ 00:18:08): definitely understood. But it’s just funny because I’m looking and thinking about it I’m like okay so standard score and scale store the higher numbers are good or average and and higher achieving. But on the T. Score the higher numbers indicate there’s an issue. So it’s the opposite
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:18:27): the hot. Right. Right. Well it’s you know just because a child’s, yes I see what you’re saying. So if a child’s I. Q. Is 76 or something that means there’s an issue but on the T. Score if there’s a higher score it basically means there’s something significant correct.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:18:42): That needs to be addressed.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:18:43): Yes. Now my most favorite statistic to describe and to put into terms that parents understand is the percentile rank because I have been on the receiving end for so
FRANCES (⏱ 00:18:55): long of
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:18:57): Oh my goodness, my child has a 27%, he is only fall, you know, his score falls at the 27th%ile, that has to be so low. In reality it’s average. Now, if you take into consider my bell shaped curve, there’s a huge range of percentiles. A 25 percentile of A%ile 25 or 25% is equal to a standard score of 90 90 is average. If your child has a T.A. of 30, it’s solidly in the average range Child has a percentile or whatever statistic there explaining of 72, It’s still average, it doesn’t mean that that that that they are that much over the mark of 50%. So it’s a huge range. So when parents see percentiles of 26 or 32 or something like that understandably, without understanding, it’s of concern. But if you can keep in mind this, this whole bell shaped curve, the whole distribution, it will show you that if your child has a percentile of 26, they’re actually doing okay. There’s really nothing to fight over. There’s, there’s, you know, it’s just the child is doing where they should be for for their age at that, you know, and everything is that moment in time. Keep also in mind that testing is a snapshot, it’s just a snapshot of how that child does that day on that particular day on that particular time and there’s so many variables that can affect a child’s performance, whether it’s before they even get tested or, you know, during the testing session itself.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:20:44): Right. I always, I’m not a fan of standardized scores and I tell everybody that, but we have to have something to use. So it’s the best we have at this point. It’s just a
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:20:54): did you mean, I’m sorry, Did you meet percentile ranks? You’re not fond of our standard scores
FRANCES (⏱ 00:20:58): on standardized tests in general because you know, you’re having an off day and it gets you everything. Um, or you guess really well, which I know there’s things built in to prevent that, but still it’s just not always accurate.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:21:15): Exactly. And that’s also another key if you’re looking to look at a child and, and whether or not they have a disability or whether or not there’s something really going on. You can’t ever, or I don’t ever recommend that you only look at one source of information. You know, we look at the whole child and that’s our job as committees on special education, we need to look at the whole child. So that means whether it’s psychologically academically medically, you know, is the child in good health. Are there any issues that need to be addressed emotionally. How is the child doing in the classroom? We should have a classroom observation of that child in the classroom, both during a structured time and during an unstructured time because there’s a whole big difference in that in that category. You know, in structured times, teachers were on the show, we’re just looking to see if a child can follow directions unstructured, such as lunch recess. The kids are self directed. We can really get a lot. I feel we get more information from the unstructured settings when I do those kind of observations than I do in a structured setting. So we just look at so many different components and of course there’s parent input, teacher input. I mean there’s just so many pieces older kids, we look at the report cards, you know, in terms of grades, younger ones, report cards are more, you know, they get their given twice a year in most cases. So you just rely more on what the teacher says in terms of their present levels of performance. But that’s the key. We want to look at a child’s present levels of performance when we’re looking at diagnosing and determining if there’s eligibility.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:22:51): I like that. The observations to make sure or request that the school do an observation and unstructured time because nine times out of 10, the observations are during, you know, math during reading, during writing because we want to see how they’re doing with that, but a whole different picture when it’s during recess or lunch,
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:23:10): right? You get to see the social skills, you get to see how they negotiate. You get to see how um how they interact with adults who might be directing them to do something. Um Again as you just noted like, you know, you can watch, you can sit and watch a child follow through in the classroom, but you know, I think a structured interview, is he also for Children that might have ADHD. Because you want to kind of get a look to see if a child might, you know, they can follow the direction but can they sustain it or they looking out the window or did somebody squeak their chair and they turn around to that? Like you can kind of see if their environmental things um that affect Children that way too. But I think I think it which it should be um it should be all um you know, all encompassing. I think having both pieces of, it would be a good idea,
FRANCES (⏱ 00:24:00): right? Which makes sense because you know, and then a child on the spectrum, you need to see in a social setting, it’s gonna be very different picture of the bell curve. You can just take that to any standardized test and have that in front of you to help, you know, a parent could do that to have to help them see where things fall if the school psychologist isn’t as fabulous as you and doesn’t put all those scores in there.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:24:26): Thank you. Um. Yes, but that, you know, if you get a report from a school district you know I wouldn’t see anything wrong with emailing. It’s not a big deal. But you can email the school psychologist maybe and just say you know can you can can you please just give me an idea of where each of these schools scores fall and what range what are they classified as And any school psychologists should do that. They should know how to do that And if they don’t know off the top of their head the manual tells them I use it all the time in my reports because it’s just so much easier you know and actually I’ll tell you truthfully the only things I report in terms of my testing. So if I’m doing an I. Q. Test I report the I. Q. Scores and the and the whisk uses and that’s the one I use mostly up here. Not again I’m in new york. Um But it comes up with scale scores so I’ll note the subtext and the scale score and the classification. I don’t know any other statistic. Um I don’t list%iles 20 like a 26 is solidly in the you know it’s in the average range the lower end of average but it’s still average um I don’t report that. And then I’ll talk about, let’s talk about the two statistics where um, we don’t like to, I I don’t, you know, used or or
FRANCES (⏱ 00:25:48): I for a while didn’t realize that great equivalent isn’t really great equivalent and shouldn’t be used because and a lot of these things I’ve been to, it’s used so often.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:25:59): Yes. I’m going to tell you, it’s probably, in my opinion, the worst statistic that’s out there and I’m going to tell you why um great equivalent is so broad and so general meaning There are lots of times you have, you might have a second grader and you have kids in there that are seven said they might be eight And they might be six. So I’m gonna put a scenario, Frances, in front of you. Okay. I have a child. Let’s say there’s a child in the grade that’s born January two 2020. Okay. Let’s just say they’re born January 2, 2020 and obviously they can’t be in second grade. But let’s just say we have someone born, you know, someone in the grade that’s january, okay. Someone in the same grade grade could have a birthday may 2021. Well, that’s a huge difference. But they’re in the same grade. So you take the child that’s 17 months ahead with 17 months more of learning experience 17 months more of formal education versus that other one. They’re in the same grade. How can that be statistically appropriate? Right. I mean there could be a great there, let me, there could be a 24-month difference. A maximum of, let’s just say 24 months between of Children in a grade. They could be january 2020 and December 2021. That’s, that’s 24 months of difference in the same grade. So how can that be equal?
FRANCES (⏱ 00:27:34): Got it? So it’s still saying? So they would say second grade level, but second grade level of which age group?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:27:44): That’s what I’m
FRANCES (⏱ 00:27:45): saying.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:27:46): And I know I totally used the wrong thing because how could you have 2020 and 2021? But I was trying to
FRANCES (⏱ 00:27:52): basically,
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:27:53): it’s the same idea, but it, but it makes sense because it’s like, you know, again, you have a six year old, you have an eight year old in the same grade. That doesn’t work. So grade levels are out, ignore it. I should tell families just if a school reports it just black that part out. You don’t even need to look at it.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:28:11): How many, you know, there’s a lot of times Children take an extra year before they enter Kindergarten. So they’re actually enter entering kindergarten at the age of six instead of typically typically depending where in the country, but five years old. Um, if you have a late birthday and you’re on time, like my birthday is october I started kindergarten when I was four years and 11 months because I turned five in October? So, you know, if I’m four years 11 months in Kindergarten and I have a child appear that was left, you know, that’s, that took an extra year and started when they were almost six. I’m four years old, 11 months and they’re six years old. I mean, just even developmentally think of the brain differences, think of think of the cognitive differences in Children in that range. You know, great equivalent. It’s just a statistic that I just, I put no credence in, personally, I’m not speaking about, you know, if any other professional feels differently, that’s okay. I’m just saying for me, I don’t look at great equivalents I never do. Um and I’ve done trainings with different um, staff members and and different districts and stuff on statistics and I, and I do the same thing. I’ve taught graduate classes at the college level for upcoming educators that are going to be giving and administering tests. And I also, in those classes I I explained about the great equivalent and why it’s probably not a statistic they kind of want to use. So that’s that
FRANCES (⏱ 00:29:39): understood and it doesn’t, I mean the question I get a lot. Like I’ll have 1/9 grader that’s being evaluated for the first time for whatever reason or being evaluated again for re evaluation and it’ll come up that they’re reading on a second grade level? Is that like it,
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:29:59): I would say, what’s the standard score? What’s the scale score of the test used a scale score, I don’t see how that’s possible and I would understand how a parent would surely get very very nervous about that, you know what’s going on here. Um And that’s another reason why I wouldn’t use great equivalent. I would use I would look at the standard score or the scale score to see where they fall in the classification as well. And now that you have the bell shaped curve to look at to use as a guide. Um You know, you can kind of see where your child’s reading is at that point, I wouldn’t pay attention to great equivalent. You know what, even if you don’t have that, ask what the percentile is. Now that, you know 25-74 is the average range you can kind of gauge if it’s really low or on the other end. So
FRANCES (⏱ 00:30:46): that makes sense. And then is that the same with age equivalent
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:30:50): age equivalent is also a statistic that I am not fond of but it’s better than great equivalent. Um It’s it’s when when when tests are standardized etcetera, they’re usually scores are usually broken down in the manual, like if we look up a child’s raw score, you know, we tally how they did on that sub test And we’re correlating it to how they did. Um it’s usually a three month range like 500 days to 55 years, three months, 30 days. So we would look up the raw score and there’s uh depending on the test, their scale score would come up to be a certain number. It’s an age equivalent. Um It’s it’s also not the best statistic because it’s not what they standardized the tests on. They standardize the tests and use standard scores, the scale scores. Those are the ones if you want your most accurate reading on how a child performs, you’re going to get it from there. I mean, an age equivalent could be something as like you just described something as low as, you know, a three year old reading, you know, are you really gonna say the child is reading at a third year, three year old level when they might be in the low average range. So there’s a big difference between reading it as a three year old, which is like a preschooler, which probably isn’t reading
FRANCES (⏱ 00:32:9): and
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:32:9): maybe a low average score, which is a, you know, a standard score that falls in the low average range. You know, I’d I’d have to see, you know, something specific like that. But I, my recommendation is to not look at those two statistics because they’re weak and there’s really not a lot to hold up on if you went to a school district and you said my child is reading at the six year old level, but they have a standard score of 85 They’re going to say that’s not true. It’s just statistically what that score might be equal to your child is actually reading in the low average range because 85 standard score is in the low average range. So
FRANCES (⏱ 00:32:48): that makes sense.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:32:50): Yeah,
FRANCES (⏱ 00:32:52): I’m looking at him thinking back of like how many times myself included when my daughter was evaluated that I get panic mode. Some of these scores, why do they do that to us?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:33:02): Like, you
FRANCES (⏱ 00:33:04): know, just because clearly the way you explained it, you know, coming up as an age or grade doesn’t matter if you’re falling in the average range.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:33:12): Exactly. You want to see where the child is performing, you know, on a standardized assessment, which means if you have a seven year old, you want to make sure they’re on the same, they’re performing just as well as a seven year old across all the states. You know, that’s, that’s really what you want. You want to see where those score score scores fall and as such, you would look at the standard score, the scale score.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:33:36): That makes sense. Thank you so much for explaining all these numbers to make sense.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:33:41): Well, I hope it was helpful. I hope I explained it in terms that make it easy, you know, for parents moving forward to kind of understand at least in the beginning of what the report says. I’d also suggest that parents read that, you know, don’t just jump to the score, read the report, read the behavioral observation part. I’m I always take time to write, I take the time to write out how a child does during the because the behavioral observation is how is that child behaving during the evaluation? So that’s what the clinician is actually reporting. How is the child doing at that point in time? So you know, are they friendly? Are they are they withdrawn? Are they, do they seem interested? Do they seem not interested? You know, A whole lot of it is motivation not motivated um spontaneous conversation. I’ve had kids that are so chatty. I have to say we have to get back to what we’re doing and they and they might interact with me in between when I switch sub tests and stuff. And I’ve got other kids that will only speak when spoken to, they’ll give you the shortest responses. Those are two very different observations and can both greatly affect test scores.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:34:52): I was just gonna say thinking about that, you know, thank you for pointing that out because I’ve never really thought about that. But as a tester, you haven’t really seen that child that often. You don’t know if that’s normal possible, You know, normal behavior or not. The parents and the teachers, we can say wait a minute. My child was shy and wasn’t interacting right? That was an off day. Like this is not my child
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:35:15): and it’s so Yeah.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:35:16): Yeah, wow.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:35:18): Yeah. In my district I’m given a name and a grade and the teacher to coordinate the testing with. So I don’t, I don’t know the kids usually before I test them. I do after, but I don’t know them before and actually as an evaluator and over the course of time and with the quantity of evaluations I’ve done, I prefer that. I don’t want anybody giving me any sort of rose colored glasses or any kind of glasses where I’m going to see the child through their eyes. I want to see the child through my eyes. Want to see how they do, how they perform, how they interact with me. And um, that gives me a very clear idea of whether I feel how the child performs. It might is an accurate representation. Like are the scores representative of how that child acted during that particular session.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:35:59): And that makes so much sense because as you said at the beginning, going back full circle as you need to look at the whole child. Look at the standard scores, Look at the task, look at the observations, look at everything right. We’re looking at and determining what the child needs.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:36:13): Yeah, there’s so much that goes into it. I mean as from a clinician’s point of view, there’s a lot that goes into testing. Please know that when a, when a clinician writes a report, psychologists, special educator, speech therapist, oT pt there’s a lot of effort and a lot of time that goes into providing these, you know, these written documents. These reports, it starts from when we get the child’s name, you know, and and and and it’s the whole testing session and it’s interpreting the results and what do we feel as clinicians? How do how do these numbers fall out? And is there, you know, we need to and then we need to find ways to express it in writing because we need to make sure what we see is accurately written in writing. So I don’t want any parents to think, oh they only took five minutes to do that and that’s what the results are. No, even the administration of these tests depending on the child and their cooperative nous and everything, it can run a standard length of time and it can run over. There’s one thing I just want to also point out um and it just, I just thought of it off the top of my head when Children, if Children that are already classified or they already have an I. E. P. If they are retested because every three years, the laws at least in new york, I assume Frances and Maryland is the same.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:37:32): Federal
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:37:32): federal law. Every three years a child must be reevaluated now, re evaluation could take the form of many different things. But in the sake of my discussion, if a child is re evaluated. You know, it’s important to know that the testing happens without any test accommodations and no program modifications. They are tested as any other child they are not given extra time, directions explained. If that’s not in the manual then it doesn’t happen all these things. And there’s a very good reason why because we need to see if the child needs those things
FRANCES (⏱ 00:38:10): right?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:38:11): If we give the testing with accommodations, everyone’s gonna come out fine and kids will be declassified left and right. The point is to test a child without anything that’s on there. I. E. P. So that the evaluator says wow okay. Like I’ve had some kids that you know absolutely have taken so much time on an I. Q. Test that might you know, take another child 45 minutes. We’re working on an hour and 20 minutes and the child just finishes and I’m like yeah they still need their extra time. You know because that’s what they need. But if I gave that child time and a half there’d be no disability,
FRANCES (⏱ 00:38:49): right?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:38:49): Most substantiation for the continuation of the IEP. So please know that when your child is tested it is done in I’ll call it raw conditions, just take the kid out of the classroom and just work with the child. No I. P. No nothing.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:39:04): That’s right because how else would you know that they need? The services are not Exactly
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:39:9): because when they were first tested and when they were first eligible that’s how you knew they needed services in the first place, right? Because you know if you have a new referral, they’re just kids are just tested. There’s no I E P. To even reflect off of
FRANCES (⏱ 00:39:23): interesting. I haven’t even thought about that and that’s a whole nother topic because on re evaluations, you know where to go because here a lot of times schools will be like oh he’s still eligible, we don’t need to test, do we? And the parents not knowing any better. Say. Yeah no that’s fine. And then go on. Which I don’t even get me started on that one. Back to schedule, another show that this has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much. How how can people get in touch with you if people want to reach out and get in touch with you?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:39:57): Sure. Um I have my own uh consulting and coaching business, there’s my information right on the screen. Um I am the owner of comprehensive academic coaching solutions. Um My contact um my phone number 914-200-4744. My website Cacsnow.com, that’s N O W dot com. And my email is the same website but just dr.randi@cacsnow.com.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:40:29): That is awesome. And just for clarification because now with Covid everybody zoom are you only seeing people in new york or can you see people nationwide
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:40:39): interesting. Before the pandemic. I was seeing people nationwide, I’ve had clients in Maryland I’ve had clients in florida. Um I’ve had you know word gets out and I just you know I work with families that way I do a lot of coaching. Like if if um I do a lot of consulting um executive functioning skills, study skills, things like that and it’s actually a niche that I found from all my testing because there were so many kids that that um I needed some kind of strategies and some kind of implementation time management a huge issue. I mean it’s one of the main things that I helped with an organization. I teach kids how to manage their time. I teach kids study strategies. Um Sometimes parents will ask me to read a report, I’ll read it and I can think of fun ways to to build up let’s say a skill that maybe was deficient or or poor on on an I. Q. Test let’s just say let’s say like their visual perceptual ability not their vision but what is their brain doing with the information coming in through this sense. So if they score low on that I can I can come up depending on the age level with strategies, fund strategies not academic but things like that to help build those abilities without the child even knowing it.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:41:52): Which is key cause nobody wants to do more school more studying.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:41:55): Exactly kids because they’re more apt to do fun things than they are to you know take out a workbook and you know do some extra math problems or something. I mean obviously if that’s something that needs help you can you have to do that but you know for some other issues and other skills and stuff there are fun ways to go about doing it without even you know
FRANCES (⏱ 00:42:15): kind of sneak them in you know after this we do that.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:42:20): Absolutely. Absolutely.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:42:23): This has been wonderful. Amazing. Thank you so much. I am so excited because if this is our first event and my first event doing this I can just see where we’re gonna go in the future and hopefully maybe in the future we’ll have you on again to hit some of the other areas that I know we have lots of issues with around here.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:42:43): Absolutely and if anybody if they write in the comment line, if there’s a topic that you want me to cover. Um I’m more than happy to do that coordinate with Frances and then I can come up with you know some more guest appearances on your show. So that would be fantastic.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:42:57): Yeah that’s a great idea if anybody wants to comment with some ideas of what the who they like to talk to or topics that you’d like randy to cover. That would be great. Um And that her information and my information will be in the show notes and hopefully you all will tune in again soon with Schefter, Law P. A. Where we help families have a stress-free i e p experience. Yeah.
Stress-Free IEP™ – Dr. Randi Brown – Understanding Test Results (Video Podcast)
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Read the full transcription of this episode:FRANCES (⏱ 00:00:08): Hello and welcome to our first show, Stress-Free IEP with Shefter Law P.A. I am so excited to start this whole journey with you all and starting these Facebook lives and I’ve really taken a lot of time and energy trying to find the right people to share information with you all um To help educate you and empower you as families. To have the knowledge you need to walk into an IEP meeting. So today I have a very special guest Dr Randi Brown who is a neuropsychologist based in school system in New York. Welcome Randi,
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:00:47): thank you very much for having me Frances.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:00:50): We are happy to have you. Um So tell us a little bit about you, your background, what you do.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:00:56): Sure. Um I am a school neuropsychologist. Um I was a school psychologist with that title for about 25 years. I’m based in New York and I am an active school psychologist working in a school district in Westchester County, New York. Um in 2016 I went for some additional training in in school neuropsychology. And after finishing that program I earned my diploma in um the American from the American Board of School neuropsychologist. So while in school districts we have school psychologists I happen to be a school neuropsychologist um And I use my expertise and helping diagnose learning disabilities um other neurological issues and Children. Excuse me. Um May I have experience working with kids from the early intervention stage through college level over my career. And most recently I’ve taken on my role in my school district as working uh kindergarten through 12th graders I am the district wide evaluator. So that means I am in all buildings all grades and seeing I can see a five year old at 10 o’clock and one o’clock I could see a 15 year old. So um I know a lot about development. Um I know a lot about assessment and I know that one of the most important things in my practice is to ensure that parents understand what I write, they understand what the results mean. Um The content of my report how it might pertain to how their child learns different learning profiles etcetera. So um thank you for finding me and for bringing me to your show so that I could help your parents and any parents out there that really wants an explanation of what some of these scores mean etcetera.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:02:41): Thank you. And there’s the special little word that why I chose you is the neuropsychologist because I get all of the time parents that come in and like well I want a neuroscience psychological evaluation. Why won’t this will do it? That’s what I want
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:02:58): and
FRANCES (⏱ 00:02:58): I don’t fully know the difference between a neuropsychological and a regular psychological what’s the difference?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:03:06): Okay well in school districts across the country there are school psychologists. They are the ones that are in the schools and they do psychological evaluations. So when a child is referred for a testing of any kind for whatever reason the school psychologist administers at least an IQ Test so that’s what we do and um depending on the referral problem will pull in other pieces. Um We’ll do rating questionnaires for let’s say attention um for executive functioning. We have something like that we do something called Projective Testing. So if we’re looking at emotional issues and Children will do all kinds of you know depending on the tools every school psychologist has access to in their school district they might pull on one of those or a couple of those two to assess where a child is emotionally. But that’s basically a school psychological evaluation. A neuropsychological evaluation is like let’s just say taking a psychological and taking it deeper. So school districts if you ask a school district for a neuro site chances are they’re going to say they don’t do it because they don’t have school neuropsychologist on staff. A school psychologist is a required member of a school district but not school neuropsychologist. So you’re often going to have to find those kind of evaluations outside of the school district. Um And a neuropsychological evaluation is doing all the components that I said but based upon its it’s like starting at an entry level. So I’ll look at a child’s I. Q. And I’ll look at rating scales and things and if I see there’s a weakness I find something um different kinds of tests that are not normally administered in a school district and I’ll administer those to dig deeper. You know it’s not just does a child have a learning disability but kind of where in where in the child’s um learning profile and in their brain is there a certain part of um something that’s going on for example? Um I’ve done some neuroscience stuff and I’ve had some kids have some vision issues. And through testing we find out that the child needed glasses and it was never an issue or never thought that way. So what might have been um visual motor issue ended up being that once the child’s prescription was you know a new prescription came and they got that it seemed to make things better. Um Other other things come out of neuropsychiatry is it’s like it’s like taking uh it’s like going into more detail about about things but in terms of school districts and school evaluations. School psychological or the psychological evaluation um is what they’ll do is what a school district will do and most times you know that’s pretty much all you need in terms of looking if you need uh documentation and stuff for classification.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:06:02): So then the psychological is all you really need for school services but a neuro psychological might be something if you want to go into further deeper and see if outside services are needed.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:06:12): That. Yes that’s a piece of it too. But it also uh if a psychological is done um in some districts the psychologist does the educational piece as well. Um And others they just do the IQ parts and and anything related that way and then they’ll have a different team member do the educational, remember um testing goes on throughout the United States. But you know, every school district, every state may do it differently. Um So whoever does the academic piece, let’s say the child’s reading scores are a little low. Well um is that enough to see what’s going on with the child? Or do you need to do something more? And it’s usually a parent’s choice whether to to pursue that kind of piece of it. But the school district could say I did this part of the evaluation and these are the results that we have and we found a weakness. They don’t necessarily have to find out why there’s a weakness that would be more of parental preference. Um And searching that out
FRANCES (⏱ 00:07:11): understood. So got it information needed. So the scores are crazy. And I know going into meetings, parents are always like What is this, what do you mean? My child is 26% or first grade level. You know like what what do all these scores mean? Can you explain it to us in layman’s terms?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:07:36): Yes. Absolutely. And that’s not going to be an issue. Um let me just explain what a standardized test is because I think it’s important that parents understand why there’s certain tests that are given. Um when we look at what’s called a standardized test and I’m just gonna throw out a couple of acronyms because I assume if if our parents are watching they know what they are. Um you know the Wechsler tests um the WISC five which is the Wechsler individual scale for Children, the fifth edition um educational testing, the WIAT which is the Wechsler individual achievement test. Um There’s the stamford Bene which is an IQ Test. There’s the KTEA, Which is an educational test. What all of these have in common is that they are called standardized assessments. Now what and that’s why school districts and professionals use standardized assessments in determining if there’s a learning disability or not. When a test is standardized and it means that it has been researched um given given out to thousands of Children across the country and across any type of socioeconomic um factor that you can think of and what the point of doing that is so that they can come up with for like a better way of saying it an average for that particular age. Um So that you know that if I give I’m in new york and if I give a child a WISC which is the I. Test and that child has a score of 100. And then there’s a child in Wyoming. And the school psychologist in Wyoming gives that gives it a whisk and they have a child that has an IQ Of 100 standardized tests mean that I’m administering that test the same way that that psychologist in Wyoming is doing it and florida and Utah and California and maine. There’s a manual meaning it’s a standardized test. We all follow a manual, we asked the same question the same exact way in the same order we give every everything is as I said standardized. So it doesn’t matter who is administering the test in whatever state it is. It’s given the same way in this in different places. So that’s kind that’s helpful to know that when a test is developed and it’s on the market. It has already been researched by these by the testing companies that produce these tests and that they’ve been vetted. They have been sampled um with so many different Children in so many different places and then they across the country like they’ll have um you know an eastern sample, a midwestern sample of Western sample and then they compare all of these scores. I I don’t get involved with that kind of statistics. But um you know when the manual comes out it really has all of the scores and measures for that particular age for that child. So that’s where we know. So if if a child is in new york and they have an IQ Of 100. And the family moves to Wyoming and the school psychologist looks at the imbalances that I gave a WISC they’ll know that I gave it a certain way because that’s how they would give it. And that means the IQ Is 100 on that testing day. Does that make sense? That
FRANCES (⏱ 00:10:47): it does it totally makes sense. But then we come and I know they use the bell curve a lot. I remember that from
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:10:55): from
FRANCES (⏱ 00:10:55): school but I know it’s confusing for parents a lot of times because again you get these percentages, you get this grade level um Standard score scale store what is all this difference?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:11:07): Okay so I have a visual for us um that we can we can share on the screen and it is a copy of the bell curve. And what I’m going to explain to you and to all our families is what a bell curve is. Now remember when I just had a test is standardized and we come up with all these scores for Children and different things. The scores for Children fall along a bell shaped curve. And what that basically means is that it gives you an idea of what they call the distribution of the scores across the population. So if you look at the biggest part on that visual where it says average 50% of the population has an IQ And we’re just looking at IQ. For this purpose. Thank you for the era. Um Between 90 and it’s really 109. It’s 11 10 starts the next level. So so 50% of the population Has an I. q. between 90 and 109. So if you have a score anywhere in there your child’s functioning in the average range. Um If you go to um a left right thing so if you go to the high average range so um nope too over
FRANCES (⏱ 00:12:17): high up
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:12:18): um you can notice that that part of the bell curve is a little smaller. So that’s 16.1% of the population falls within with their their full I. Q. Let’s say would be between 1 10 and 1 19. Conversely on the low average side you’d have 80 to 89. And as you can see it thins out so the you don’t expect to have um most of the population with a deficient I. Q. Or a superior I. Q. Um Even on the low end and the high end most of the kids that we work with will fall in the average range. The high average range. Perhaps the low average range. So that’s kind of the distribution of scores of what we see across ages and across kids growing up. If I were to give an adult I. Q. Test it would be the same bell shaped curve. But it’s a way for us to really get a visual of understanding where I. Q. Scores fall um in our population.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:13:18): So that explains the basic number but then looking down at the percentile rank. Well I know I’ve had parents go 26
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:13:27): so what Perfect. So why don’t we go across and then we’ll talk about what I know you had addressed with me before. Great equivalents and age equivalents will do that. They’re not on the graph for a specific reason because they’re not a great those are great statistics but I will mention those in a minute. Okay so you’re reading your child’s report and they say your child has a standard score. A standard score is pretty much a way of, it’s a it’s a statistic that basically describes where your child’s performance fell. And for most tests they range in a three month range like 5 to 55 years old, five years, three months 5, 4 months old to 5 7 months 58 and etcetera etcetera. I might have gotten those numbers wrong just off the top of my head but I’m trying to illustrate, it’s like a three month range. So if a child is a standard score Ana WIAT of let’s say 88 on a sub test, they fall in the low average range. If they have a standard score of 113 then they phone the high average range. What I would recommend to parents is that if you receive a report from a school district that only has numbers whether it’s a standard score a. Scale score A. T score a central rank, whatever it is ask for what I call the classification and the classification are those words right above underscore type. So that will help you know where your child’s performance was. So as I said if a child got an 88 on a standard score the next column should say low average. So you kind of know where their score falls in the continuum. So Scales as you can see a standard score is like 90-109. So it’s it’s really in that ballpark let’s drop down a row to a scale score. Now the I. Q. Test usually use scaled scores. The achievement ones usually use standard scores. But as you can see if the child has a scaled score like on the coding sub test or vocabulary or any of those where they’re scaled score is from 8 to 11. That’s the average range. If they have a scale score of 12 or 13 there in the high average range really having an understanding of what what classification the scores fall in will absolutely help you learn how to interpret where your child’s performs compared to same aged peers. So I think that’s very important. So whether it’s a standard score or a scale score you can kind of see on this on this continuum. You know if a child unfortunately gets a scale score of two. Well we know there’s a very big problem there there’s a there’s a deficient score and that that might be something where I might say well you know what maybe we need to look into that a little further because what is so deficient on that performance. Um So that’s basically the scale score T. Scores are a whole nother or a whole another statistic. Um But some scores for example if you are ever given a Conners rating scale for example to determine whether
FRANCES (⏱ 00:16:29): or not your scale
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:16:30): is exhibiting forms of ADHD They’re the way and it’s ranked on what’s called a liquored scale. So you know how you circle 120123. And you have to circle whether your child exhibits for it might say might um my child is restless and you rank it you rank their performance well not at all A little bit a lot or very much. Then you you know you rate it you circle it you know 012 or three. You rate that statement. And then what happens after that is you you know the clinician scores it and then the raw score, the tally of whatever comes up with his compromise is correlated with a T. Score. So A T. Score again. Another just another statistic to describe where a score falls. But if a child has a T. Score of let’s say 52 that for whatever category that would be the average range. If you C. T. Scores like on the Conners, if a child gets a T. Score of 60 or above equal to 60 or above it usually means that there’s something significant to to look at. It doesn’t diagnose ADHD But it says there’s something significant there. So the higher the T. Score essentially at least if we’re looking at ADH. Is um is more significant. Um You know and and conversely I don’t really see a lot of numbers in the deficient range or the low range for the most part. But essentially on a scale of of ADHD. It might suggest that there’s just absolutely no indication at all that there is any kind of issue. Um So that would be the T. Score. Is this okay so far Frances
FRANCES (⏱ 00:18:08): definitely understood. But it’s just funny because I’m looking and thinking about it I’m like okay so standard score and scale store the higher numbers are good or average and and higher achieving. But on the T. Score the higher numbers indicate there’s an issue. So it’s the opposite
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:18:27): the hot. Right. Right. Well it’s you know just because a child’s, yes I see what you’re saying. So if a child’s I. Q. Is 76 or something that means there’s an issue but on the T. Score if there’s a higher score it basically means there’s something significant correct.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:18:42): That needs to be addressed.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:18:43): Yes. Now my most favorite statistic to describe and to put into terms that parents understand is the percentile rank because I have been on the receiving end for so
FRANCES (⏱ 00:18:55): long of
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:18:57): Oh my goodness, my child has a 27%, he is only fall, you know, his score falls at the 27th%ile, that has to be so low. In reality it’s average. Now, if you take into consider my bell shaped curve, there’s a huge range of percentiles. A 25 percentile of A%ile 25 or 25% is equal to a standard score of 90 90 is average. If your child has a T.A. of 30, it’s solidly in the average range Child has a percentile or whatever statistic there explaining of 72, It’s still average, it doesn’t mean that that that that they are that much over the mark of 50%. So it’s a huge range. So when parents see percentiles of 26 or 32 or something like that understandably, without understanding, it’s of concern. But if you can keep in mind this, this whole bell shaped curve, the whole distribution, it will show you that if your child has a percentile of 26, they’re actually doing okay. There’s really nothing to fight over. There’s, there’s, you know, it’s just the child is doing where they should be for for their age at that, you know, and everything is that moment in time. Keep also in mind that testing is a snapshot, it’s just a snapshot of how that child does that day on that particular day on that particular time and there’s so many variables that can affect a child’s performance, whether it’s before they even get tested or, you know, during the testing session itself.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:20:44): Right. I always, I’m not a fan of standardized scores and I tell everybody that, but we have to have something to use. So it’s the best we have at this point. It’s just a
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:20:54): did you mean, I’m sorry, Did you meet percentile ranks? You’re not fond of our standard scores
FRANCES (⏱ 00:20:58): on standardized tests in general because you know, you’re having an off day and it gets you everything. Um, or you guess really well, which I know there’s things built in to prevent that, but still it’s just not always accurate.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:21:15): Exactly. And that’s also another key if you’re looking to look at a child and, and whether or not they have a disability or whether or not there’s something really going on. You can’t ever, or I don’t ever recommend that you only look at one source of information. You know, we look at the whole child and that’s our job as committees on special education, we need to look at the whole child. So that means whether it’s psychologically academically medically, you know, is the child in good health. Are there any issues that need to be addressed emotionally. How is the child doing in the classroom? We should have a classroom observation of that child in the classroom, both during a structured time and during an unstructured time because there’s a whole big difference in that in that category. You know, in structured times, teachers were on the show, we’re just looking to see if a child can follow directions unstructured, such as lunch recess. The kids are self directed. We can really get a lot. I feel we get more information from the unstructured settings when I do those kind of observations than I do in a structured setting. So we just look at so many different components and of course there’s parent input, teacher input. I mean there’s just so many pieces older kids, we look at the report cards, you know, in terms of grades, younger ones, report cards are more, you know, they get their given twice a year in most cases. So you just rely more on what the teacher says in terms of their present levels of performance. But that’s the key. We want to look at a child’s present levels of performance when we’re looking at diagnosing and determining if there’s eligibility.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:22:51): I like that. The observations to make sure or request that the school do an observation and unstructured time because nine times out of 10, the observations are during, you know, math during reading, during writing because we want to see how they’re doing with that, but a whole different picture when it’s during recess or lunch,
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:23:10): right? You get to see the social skills, you get to see how they negotiate. You get to see how um how they interact with adults who might be directing them to do something. Um Again as you just noted like, you know, you can watch, you can sit and watch a child follow through in the classroom, but you know, I think a structured interview, is he also for Children that might have ADHD. Because you want to kind of get a look to see if a child might, you know, they can follow the direction but can they sustain it or they looking out the window or did somebody squeak their chair and they turn around to that? Like you can kind of see if their environmental things um that affect Children that way too. But I think I think it which it should be um it should be all um you know, all encompassing. I think having both pieces of, it would be a good idea,
FRANCES (⏱ 00:24:00): right? Which makes sense because you know, and then a child on the spectrum, you need to see in a social setting, it’s gonna be very different picture of the bell curve. You can just take that to any standardized test and have that in front of you to help, you know, a parent could do that to have to help them see where things fall if the school psychologist isn’t as fabulous as you and doesn’t put all those scores in there.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:24:26): Thank you. Um. Yes, but that, you know, if you get a report from a school district you know I wouldn’t see anything wrong with emailing. It’s not a big deal. But you can email the school psychologist maybe and just say you know can you can can you please just give me an idea of where each of these schools scores fall and what range what are they classified as And any school psychologists should do that. They should know how to do that And if they don’t know off the top of their head the manual tells them I use it all the time in my reports because it’s just so much easier you know and actually I’ll tell you truthfully the only things I report in terms of my testing. So if I’m doing an I. Q. Test I report the I. Q. Scores and the and the whisk uses and that’s the one I use mostly up here. Not again I’m in new york. Um But it comes up with scale scores so I’ll note the subtext and the scale score and the classification. I don’t know any other statistic. Um I don’t list%iles 20 like a 26 is solidly in the you know it’s in the average range the lower end of average but it’s still average um I don’t report that. And then I’ll talk about, let’s talk about the two statistics where um, we don’t like to, I I don’t, you know, used or or
FRANCES (⏱ 00:25:48): I for a while didn’t realize that great equivalent isn’t really great equivalent and shouldn’t be used because and a lot of these things I’ve been to, it’s used so often.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:25:59): Yes. I’m going to tell you, it’s probably, in my opinion, the worst statistic that’s out there and I’m going to tell you why um great equivalent is so broad and so general meaning There are lots of times you have, you might have a second grader and you have kids in there that are seven said they might be eight And they might be six. So I’m gonna put a scenario, Frances, in front of you. Okay. I have a child. Let’s say there’s a child in the grade that’s born January two 2020. Okay. Let’s just say they’re born January 2, 2020 and obviously they can’t be in second grade. But let’s just say we have someone born, you know, someone in the grade that’s january, okay. Someone in the same grade grade could have a birthday may 2021. Well, that’s a huge difference. But they’re in the same grade. So you take the child that’s 17 months ahead with 17 months more of learning experience 17 months more of formal education versus that other one. They’re in the same grade. How can that be statistically appropriate? Right. I mean there could be a great there, let me, there could be a 24-month difference. A maximum of, let’s just say 24 months between of Children in a grade. They could be january 2020 and December 2021. That’s, that’s 24 months of difference in the same grade. So how can that be equal?
FRANCES (⏱ 00:27:34): Got it? So it’s still saying? So they would say second grade level, but second grade level of which age group?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:27:44): That’s what I’m
FRANCES (⏱ 00:27:45): saying.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:27:46): And I know I totally used the wrong thing because how could you have 2020 and 2021? But I was trying to
FRANCES (⏱ 00:27:52): basically,
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:27:53): it’s
the same idea, but it, but it makes sense because it’s like, you know, again, you have a six year old, you have an eight year old in the same grade. That doesn’t work. So grade levels are out, ignore it. I should tell families just if a school reports it just black that part out. You don’t even need to look at it.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:28:11): How many, you know, there’s a lot of times Children take an extra year before they enter Kindergarten. So they’re actually enter entering kindergarten at the age of six instead of typically typically depending where in the country, but five years old. Um, if you have a late birthday and you’re on time, like my birthday is october I started kindergarten when I was four years and 11 months because I turned five in October? So, you know, if I’m four years 11 months in Kindergarten and I have a child appear that was left, you know, that’s, that took an extra year and started when they were almost six. I’m four years old, 11 months and they’re six years old. I mean, just even developmentally think of the brain differences, think of think of the cognitive differences in Children in that range. You know, great equivalent. It’s just a statistic that I just, I put no credence in, personally, I’m not speaking about, you know, if any other professional feels differently, that’s okay. I’m just saying for me, I don’t look at great equivalents I never do. Um and I’ve done trainings with different um, staff members and and different districts and stuff on statistics and I, and I do the same thing. I’ve taught graduate classes at the college level for upcoming educators that are going to be giving and administering tests. And I also, in those classes I I explained about the great equivalent and why it’s probably not a statistic they kind of want to use. So that’s that
FRANCES (⏱ 00:29:39): understood and it doesn’t, I mean the question I get a lot. Like I’ll have 1/9 grader that’s being evaluated for the first time for whatever reason or being evaluated again for re evaluation and it’ll come up that they’re reading on a second grade level? Is that like it,
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:29:59): I would say, what’s the standard score? What’s the scale score of the test used a scale score, I don’t see how that’s possible and I would understand how a parent would surely get very very nervous about that, you know what’s going on here. Um And that’s another reason why I wouldn’t use great equivalent. I would use I would look at the standard score or the scale score to see where they fall in the classification as well. And now that you have the bell shaped curve to look at to use as a guide. Um You know, you can kind of see where your child’s reading is at that point, I wouldn’t pay attention to great equivalent. You know what, even if you don’t have that, ask what the percentile is. Now that, you know 25-74 is the average range you can kind of gauge if it’s really low or on the other end. So
FRANCES (⏱ 00:30:46): that makes sense. And then is that the same with age equivalent
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:30:50): age equivalent is also a statistic that I am not fond of but it’s better than great equivalent. Um It’s it’s when when when tests are standardized etcetera, they’re usually scores are usually broken down in the manual, like if we look up a child’s raw score, you know, we tally how they did on that sub test And we’re correlating it to how they did. Um it’s usually a three month range like 500 days to 55 years, three months, 30 days. So we would look up the raw score and there’s uh depending on the test, their scale score would come up to be a certain number. It’s an age equivalent. Um It’s it’s also not the best statistic because it’s not what they standardized the tests on. They standardize the tests and use standard scores, the scale scores. Those are the ones if you want your most accurate reading on how a child performs, you’re going to get it from there. I mean, an age equivalent could be something as like you just described something as low as, you know, a three year old reading, you know, are you really gonna say the child is reading at a third year, three year old level when they might be in the low average range. So there’s a big difference between reading it as a three year old, which is like a preschooler, which probably isn’t reading
FRANCES (⏱ 00:32:9): and
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:32:9): maybe a low average score, which is a, you know, a standard score that falls in the low average range. You know, I’d I’d have to see, you know, something specific like that. But I, my recommendation is to not look at those two statistics because they’re weak and there’s really not a lot to hold up on if you went to a school district and you said my child is reading at the six year old level, but they have a standard score of 85 They’re going to say that’s not true. It’s just statistically what that score might be equal to your child is actually reading in the low average range because 85 standard score is in the low average range. So
FRANCES (⏱ 00:32:48): that makes sense.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:32:50): Yeah,
FRANCES (⏱ 00:32:52): I’m looking at him thinking back of like how many times myself included when my daughter was evaluated that I get panic mode. Some of these scores, why do they do that to us?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:33:02): Like, you
FRANCES (⏱ 00:33:04): know, just because clearly the way you explained it, you know, coming up as an age or grade doesn’t matter if you’re falling in the average range.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:33:12): Exactly. You want to see where the child is performing, you know, on a standardized assessment, which means if you have a seven year old, you want to make sure they’re on the same, they’re performing just as well as a seven year old across all the states. You know, that’s, that’s really what you want. You want to see where those score score scores fall and as such, you would look at the standard score, the scale score.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:33:36): That makes sense. Thank you so much for explaining all these numbers to make sense.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:33:41): Well, I hope it was helpful. I hope I explained it in terms that make it easy, you know, for parents moving forward to kind of understand at least in the beginning of what the report says. I’d also suggest that parents read that, you know, don’t just jump to the score, read the report, read the behavioral observation part. I’m I always take time to write, I take the time to write out how a child does during the because the behavioral observation is how is that child behaving during the evaluation? So that’s what the clinician is actually reporting. How is the child doing at that point in time? So you know, are they friendly? Are they are they withdrawn? Are they, do they seem interested? Do they seem not interested? You know, A whole lot of it is motivation not motivated um spontaneous conversation. I’ve had kids that are so chatty. I have to say we have to get back to what we’re doing and they and they might interact with me in between when I switch sub tests and stuff. And I’ve got other kids that will only speak when spoken to, they’ll give you the shortest responses. Those are two very different observations and can both greatly affect test scores.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:34:52): I was just gonna say thinking about that, you know, thank you for pointing that out because I’ve never really thought about that. But as a tester, you haven’t really seen that child that often. You don’t know if that’s normal possible, You know, normal behavior or not. The parents and the teachers, we can say wait a minute. My child was shy and wasn’t interacting right? That was an off day. Like this is not my child
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:35:15): and it’s so Yeah.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:35:16): Yeah, wow.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:35:18): Yeah. In my district I’m given a name and a grade and the teacher to coordinate the testing with. So I don’t, I don’t know the kids usually before I test them. I do after, but I don’t know them before and actually as an evaluator and over the course of time and with the quantity of evaluations I’ve done, I prefer that. I don’t want anybody giving me any sort of rose colored glasses or any kind of glasses where I’m going to see the child through their eyes. I want to see the child through my eyes. Want to see how they do, how they perform, how they interact with me. And um, that gives me a very clear idea of whether I feel how the child performs. It might is an accurate representation. Like are the scores representative of how that child acted during that particular session.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:35:59): And that makes so much sense because as you said at the beginning, going back full circle as you need to look at the whole child. Look at the standard scores, Look at the task, look at the observations, look at everything right. We’re looking at and determining what the child needs.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:36:13): Yeah, there’s so much that goes into it. I mean as from a clinician’s point of view, there’s a lot that goes into testing. Please know that when a, when a clinician writes a report, psychologists, special educator, speech therapist, oT pt there’s a lot of effort and a lot of time that goes into providing these, you know, these written documents. These reports, it starts from when we get the child’s name, you know, and and and and it’s the whole testing session and it’s interpreting the results and what do we feel as clinicians? How do how do these numbers fall out? And is there, you know, we need to and then we need to find ways to express it in writing because we need to make sure what we see is accurately written in writing. So I don’t want any parents to think, oh they only took five minutes to do that and that’s what the results are. No, even the administration of these tests depending on the child and their cooperative nous and everything, it can run a standard length of time and it can run over. There’s one thing I just want to also point out um and it just, I just thought of it off the top of my head when Children, if Children that are already classified or they already have an I. E. P. If they are retested because every three years, the laws at least in new york, I assume Frances and Maryland is the same.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:37:32): Federal
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:37:32): federal law. Every three years a child must be reevaluated now, re evaluation could take the form of many different things. But in the sake of my discussion, if a child is re evaluated. You know, it’s important to know that the testing happens without any test accommodations and no program modifications. They are tested as any other child they are not given extra time, directions explained. If that’s not in the manual then it doesn’t happen all these things. And there’s a very good reason why because we need to see if the child needs those things
FRANCES (⏱ 00:38:10): right?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:38:11): If we give the testing with accommodations, everyone’s gonna come out fine and kids will be declassified left and right. The point is to test a child without anything that’s on there. I. E. P. So that the evaluator says wow okay. Like I’ve had some kids that you know absolutely have taken so much time on an I. Q. Test that might you know, take another child 45 minutes. We’re working on an hour and 20 minutes and the child just finishes and I’m like yeah they still need their extra time. You know because that’s what they need. But if I gave that child time and a half there’d be no disability,
FRANCES (⏱ 00:38:49): right?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:38:49): Most substantiation for the continuation of the IEP. So please know that when your child is tested it is done in I’ll call it raw conditions, just take the kid out of the classroom and just work with the child. No I. P. No nothing.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:39:04): That’s right because how else would you know that they need? The services are not Exactly
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:39:9): because when they were first tested and when they were first eligible that’s how you knew they needed services in the first place, right? Because you know if you have a new referral, they’re just kids are just tested. There’s no I E P. To even reflect off of
FRANCES (⏱ 00:39:23): interesting. I haven’t even thought about that and that’s a whole nother topic because on re evaluations, you know where to go because here a lot of times schools will be like oh he’s still eligible, we don’t need to test, do we? And the parents not knowing any better. Say. Yeah no that’s fine. And then go on. Which I don’t even get me started on that one. Back to schedule, another show that this has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much. How how can people get in touch with you if people want to reach out and get in touch with you?
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:39:57): Sure. Um I have my own uh consulting and coaching business, there’s my information right on the screen. Um I am the owner of comprehensive academic coaching solutions. Um My contact um my phone number 914-200-4744. My website Cacsnow.com, that’s N O W dot com. And my email is the same website but just dr.randi@cacsnow.com.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:40:29): That is awesome. And just for clarification because now with Covid everybody zoom are you only seeing people in new york or can you see people nationwide
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:40:39): interesting. Before the pandemic. I was seeing people nationwide, I’ve had clients in Maryland I’ve had clients in florida. Um I’ve had you know word gets out and I just you know I work with families that way I do a lot of coaching. Like if if um I do a lot of consulting um executive functioning skills, study skills, things like that and it’s actually a niche that I found from all my testing because there were so many kids that that um I needed some kind of strategies and some kind of implementation time management a huge issue. I mean it’s one of the main things that I helped with an organization. I teach kids how to manage their time. I teach kids study strategies. Um Sometimes parents will ask me to read a report, I’ll read it and I can think of fun ways to to build up let’s say a skill that maybe was deficient or or poor on on an I. Q. Test let’s just say let’s say like their visual perceptual ability not their vision but what is their brain doing with the information coming in through this sense. So if they score low on that I can I can come up depending on the age level with strategies, fund strategies not academic but things like that to help build those abilities without the child even knowing it.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:41:52): Which is key cause nobody wants to do more school more studying.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:41:55): Exactly kids because they’re more apt to do fun things than they are to you know take out a workbook and you know do some extra math problems or something. I mean obviously if that’s something that needs help you can you have to do that but you know for some other issues and other skills and stuff there are fun ways to go about doing it without even you know
FRANCES (⏱ 00:42:15): kind of sneak them in you know after this we do that.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:42:20): Absolutely. Absolutely.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:42:23): This has been wonderful. Amazing. Thank you so much. I am so excited because if this is our first event and my first event doing this I can just see where we’re gonna go in the future and hopefully maybe in the future we’ll have you on again to hit some of the other areas that I know we have lots of issues with around here.
DR. RANDI BROWN (⏱ 00:42:43): Absolutely and if anybody if they write in the comment line, if there’s a topic that you want me to cover. Um I’m more than happy to do that coordinate with Frances and then I can come up with you know some more guest appearances on your show. So that would be fantastic.
FRANCES (⏱ 00:42:57): Yeah that’s a great idea if anybody wants to comment with some ideas of what the who they like to talk to or topics that you’d like randy to cover. That would be great. Um And that her information and my information will be in the show notes and hopefully you all will tune in again soon with Schefter, Law P. A. Where we help families have a stress-free i e p experience. Yeah.
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