Understanding Your Child's Evaluation Report

After weeks of testing, the school psychologist hands you a thick report detailing your child’s evaluation results. It’s filled with unfamiliar terms, complex charts, and a dizzying array of numbers. It’s easy to feel lost. But this document is the foundation of your child’s IEP, and understanding it is a critical advocacy skill.

Let’s demystify some of the key concepts you’ll find in a typical psycho-educational evaluation.

The Bell Curve: A Visual Guide

Most standardized tests are designed so that student scores fall along a bell-shaped curve. The highest point of the curve represents the average score. Most students (about 68%) will score in the average range. The further a score is from the center of the curve, the more atypical it is.

Key Numbers and What They Mean

You will likely see several different types of scores in the report. Here are the most common:

• Standard Score (SS): This is often the most important score. On most educational tests, the average standard score is 100. A score between 85 and 115 is typically considered the average range. Scores below 85 indicate a potential area of weakness, while scores below 70 often indicate a significant disability.

• Percentile Rank (%ile): This score shows how your child performed compared to a sample of their peers. It is NOT the percentage of questions they got right. A percentile rank of 50 is average. If your child scores at the 25th percentile, it means they scored as well as or better than 25% of their peers, while 75% of their peers scored higher. A percentile rank below the 16th is often a red flag for a learning disability.

• Subtest Scaled Score (ss): Many large tests are made up of smaller subtests that measure specific skills. These are often reported as scaled scores, where the average is 10. A scaled score between 8 and 12 is typically considered average.

Score Type	Average	What to Look For
Standard Score (SS)	100 (Range: 85-115)	Scores below 85 indicate a weakness.
Percentile Rank (%ile)	50 (Range: 16-84)	Scores below the 16th percentile are a significant red flag.
Scaled Score (ss)	10 (Range: 8-12)	Scores below 8 indicate a weakness.

Looking for the Pattern: Cognitive vs. Achievement Testing

The evaluation will typically include two main types of testing:

1. Cognitive Testing (e.g., an IQ test): This measures your child’s underlying cognitive abilities, like verbal reasoning, visual-spatial skills, and working memory. It’s an indicator of their potential to learn.

2. Academic Achievement Testing: This measures what your child has actually learned in school. It assesses skills like reading, writing, and math.

For a classic case of dyslexia, you will often see a significant gap between the child’s cognitive potential and their academic achievement in reading. For example, a child might have an average IQ score (e.g., a standard score of 105) but have very low scores on tests of decoding and reading fluency (e.g., a standard score of 75). This ability-achievement discrepancy is a hallmark of a specific learning disability.

Don’t Forget the Narrative

The numbers only tell part of the story. The most important part of the report is the narrative summary, where the evaluator synthesizes all the information—from the test scores to their own observations of your child during testing. This section should clearly state whether or not your child meets the criteria for a specific learning disability and provide recommendations for instruction and accommodations.

Read this section carefully. Does it accurately describe the child you know? Are the recommendations specific and appropriate for dyslexia?

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. You can and should schedule a meeting with the evaluator to walk through the report. Ask them to explain the results in plain language. The more you understand about your child’s unique learning profile, the better you can advocate for the specific supports they need to succeed.

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Related reading:

• Decoding Psychological Evaluation Reports
• How to Request a Dyslexia Evaluation from Your School
• How to Request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE)