The Foreign Service Journal, December 2013

90 DECEMBER 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT The exercise can help ease the frustration that both you and your child may be experiencing. before sharing it with the school or with other professionals. You will then know exactly what information the school is seeing, and also be in a position to contact the evaluator before it is shared should there be any misinformation included in the report. Typical Outcomes In most cases, parents are correct in perceiving that their child has difficulty in one or more areas. As part of the evalua- tion process, diagnoses are made to assist in identifying these areas of weakness more precisely. Typical findings as a result of psy- choeducational evaluation are learning disorders (e.g., reading disorder, mathe- matics disorder and/or writing disorder), language disorders (e.g., weakness in expressive language, receptive language and/or auditory processing) and atten- tion disorders (with or without executive dysfunction). Additional factors that may contribute to your child’s struggle may include prob- lems with retention, processing speed or anxiety. In some instances, parents have no concerns regarding their child’s learning. They simply want their child to under- stand how he or she learns, and how best to study. In these cases, the evaluation may lead not to a diagnosis, but to strate- gies for learning most efficiently and effectively. How to Use a Psychoeducational Evaluation Once you have had your child evalu- ated and received the report, what do you do with the information? While some parents are concerned with the