Should I talk to my child’s teacher about an assessment?

When you are deciding whether to pursue a psychoeducational or developmental assessment—or if you have already booked one—your child’s school is one of your most valuable sources of information. Teachers spend upwards of thirty hours a week watching your child navigate complex social dynamics, structured routines, academic demands, and distractions.

Because children often adapt or mask their struggles differently at home than they do in a busy classroom, seeing the full picture requires input from both environments. Gathering this data early helps you decide if an assessment is necessary, and provides your psychologist with essential clues to target their testing.

Here is a practical guide on how to approach your child’s school, what questions to ask, and the specific documents to gather.

1. How to Approach the Conversation

Teachers want their students to succeed, but they are also juggling large classrooms and busy schedules. When reaching out, the goal is to frame the request as a collaborative partnership rather than an investigation into their teaching methods.

Send a brief, direct email to request a phone call or a brief meeting.

Example Script: “Hi [Teacher’s Name], we are currently exploring some ways to better support [Child’s Name]’s learning and development, and we are considering looking into a comprehensive assessment. Because you see them every day in the classroom, your perspective is incredibly valuable to us. Do you have 10–15 minutes for a quick phone call or meeting next week so I can ask you a few specific questions about how they are navigating daily school life?”

2. The Specific Questions to Ask

If you ask a general question like “How is my child doing?,” you will usually get a general answer like “They are doing great, they are very sweet.” To get data that is useful for an assessment, you need to ask targeted questions about specific domains.

Academics & Processing

The Output Gap:

• Does their verbal participation in class match what they are actually able to put down on paper? 
• Do they struggle to get their thoughts out in writing?

Pacing:

• Does it take them significantly longer than their peers to finish tasks? 
• Do they fly through work too quickly and make careless errors?

New Concepts:

• How many times do they need an instruction or a new concept repeated before it clicks? 
• Do they look confused when given multi-step verbal directions?

Executive Functioning & Attention

The Transition Wall:

• How do they handle moving from one subject to another, or coming inside after recess? 
• Do they get dysregulated or stuck during changes in routine?

Task Initiation:

• When an independent task is assigned, do they get started right away, or do they wander, sharpen pencils, or require direct teacher prompting to begin?

Working Memory:

• Do they frequently lose their belongings, forget to hand in worksheets, or struggle to remember classroom routines?

Social, Emotional, & Behavioral Regulation

Unstructured Time:

• How do they handle recess, lunch, or free play? 
• Are they interacting directly with peers, playing alongside them, or keeping to themselves?”

Perfectionism & Mistakes:

• What happens when they make a mistake or don’t understand something? 
• Do they freeze, erase their work repeatedly, get defensive, or tear up?

The Compliance Shift:

• Do you notice them holding in their stress all day? 
• Do they look visibly exhausted, hyper-vigilant, or overly quiet by the end of the day?

3. The Paper Trail: What Documents to Collect

A psychological assessment doesn’t just look at how a child performs on a single day of testing; it looks at their developmental and academic history. Begin collecting and organizing the following school records to share with your psychologist:

Progress Reports and Report Cards:

• Gather reports going back at least two to three years. Look closely at the “Learning Skills” or “General Comments” sections, not just the letter grades. Psychologists look for phrases like “needs to proofread work,” “struggles with organization,” or “frequently distracted by peers.”

Individual Education Plans (IEPs):

• If your child already receives formal accommodations or modifications, the current and past IEPs are essential documents that outline what supports have already been tried.

School Board Screening Results:

• If the school has conducted internal reading screenings, speech-language checks, or standardized group testing, request copies of these scores. If your child has participated in EQAO testing, bring those results too. 

Work Samples:

• Keep examples of assignments that illustrate your concerns—such as a piece of writing showing significant spelling or spacing issues, math worksheets with frequent tracking errors, or a project where the child clearly struggled to organize their thoughts.

4. What to Do with This Information

Once you have gathered this input, you can bring it to an intake consultation with a psychologist. If the school feedback matches your home concerns—or reveals significant, unexpected gaps in their learning or emotional life at school—it is often a strong indicator that moving forward with a formal psychoeducational or psychodiagnostic assessment is a valuable next step. This data allows the clinical team to build a highly targeted testing plan that addresses your child’s exact real-world hurdles.

5. Download Our Teacher Observation Checklist

To make your meeting or phone call easier, we have put together a simple, printable Teacher Input Form. You can download this form and bring it with you to help collect your thoughts, stay organized under pressure, and track the teacher’s specific observations in real-time. Having these targeted notes ready ensures you won’t miss any critical details when it comes time to share this information with your clinical assessment team.

Deciding which path to take depends entirely on your family’s current situation. If your school team is able to assess your child quickly, the school board path is an excellent resource. If the school waitlist is longer than you feel comfortable with, or if you want a broader blueprint that covers life both inside and outside the classroom, a private assessment is a great alternative to get answers right away.

About the Author: