The Role of the Independent Neuropsychologist in Special Education

Abstract

Neuropsychologists are playing an increasing role in special education. We explain steps that neuropsychologists can take to ethically and effectively approach the “quasi-forensic” role of independent evaluator. Because neuropsychologists may provide reports for treatment, school programming, and legal disputes, it is important that they are familiar with the school programming process and the unique litigation procedures available for children with disabilities in special education. We provide guidelines including determining referral questions, obtaining outside information, choosing assessments, considering the legal constructs of questions, reviewing discrepant results from other evaluations and Individual Education Plans and communicating ideas.

Keywords:

• Education
• Clinical practice
• Forensic

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the organizers of the Drexel Pediatric Neuropsychology Symposium, Doug Chute, Brian Daly, Tania Giovannetti, and Andy Zabel, for the impetus and opportunity to present this paper. We acknowledge with gratitude three anonymous reviews, who immensely improved this article. Any remaining errors are our own.

This document has not been published elsewhere and it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication in another source. There are no conflicts of interest related to this work by either author.

Notes

¹ Each category of disability is legally defined in the federal IDEA and such definitions may or may not be consistent with definitions contained in the DSM-IV-TR. See, 34 C.F.R. 300.8. (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). The categories are: autism, deaf-blindness, deafness, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, mental retardation, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment, which includes ADHD (Davila, Williams, & MacDonald, 1991), specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, visual impairment including blindness. As a result of the passage of Rosa's Law, P.L. No. 111-256, in October of 2010, all references to mental retardation are now changed to “intellectual disability.”

² Prior to 2004 many schools determined IDEA eligibility for SLD based on the existence of a severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability, using assessments readily available to in-house school psychologists. IDEA 2004 precludes policies that require the use of a discrepancy formula in SLD eligibility determinations. Instead each state must provide specific guidelines to schools on how to assess SLD, and schools may not opt out of these requirements (34 C.F.R. § 300.307(a), 2006).

³ Since the IDEA is a federal statute implemented by individual states, it falls under the jurisdiction of both state and federal courts. When a Due Process administrative decision is appealed, the party filing the complaint may choose to appeal to either the relevant state or federal court. While federal courts would all apply the Daubert standard, some state courts still apply the Frye test of admissibility, determining if the process, system or theory of the evidence is “sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field to which it belongs” (Frye v. United States, 1923).

⁴ See also Ridgewood Board of Education v. N.E. (1999), Deal v. Hamilton County Board of Education (2004). All stand for the proposition that hearing officers and courts must consider the potential of the child in determining whether the child has received meaningful benefit from the educational program provided by the school district. See similar standards of meaningful benefit in the 4th, 8th and 9th circuits (Florence County School District Four v. Carter, 1999; N.B. v. Hellgate Elem. Sch. District, 2008; ISD No. 284 v. A.C., 2001).

⁵ It was pointed out to us that there may be lapses in training opportunities for clinical neuropsychologists in methodologies and the implementation of school-based observations. Meanwhile, in the field of school psychology, the response to intervention approach to address broad-based school failures has resulted in a burgeoning interest in new methods for conducting reliable, quantitative, ecologically valid observations. The interested reader is directed to Volpe, DiPerna, Hintze, and Shapiro (2010), Hintze, (2005) and Tilly (2008) for a small sampling of this literature. Note that federal law requires the use of observation in determinations of certain eligibility categories, such as SLD (34 C.F.R. 300.310(a)).