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During meetings I focus on lagging skills and not behaviors. Also, empathy is very important, as well as reading nonverbal language of parents.. Parents might not be in the place to receive the message, so I thread lightly, yet provide factual information with focus on solutions vs. admiring a problem.

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-When inviting the parent to the meeting, provide resources for the parent to bring along an "advocate" or "designated note taker"
-Send home the report ahead of time so family/parents have time to process the information and decision before the feedback meeting
-Verbally knowledge these meetings often focus on a child's deficits and take the time to share the child's strengths
-Visual to support the information you are giving so not just all auditory information
-Being honest and not skirting around the deficits we are observing

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-How do we distinguish between social communication deficits vs. social skill deficits because often students will test well on social communication assessments but they fail to use these skills in the classroom environment?
-We would like to see more effective team approaches to creating a game plan to support these students rather than piece mailing SDI together

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-If we have teachers who work with our students in all environments they are in at school, do we need to confirm their observations? Or can we ask teachers clarifying questions of their daily observations? Are we the "experts" in identifying or are we working as a team with our teachers?
-Are our observations part of our understanding of the whole child or are we expected to upload a formal write-up of our observations?

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Child interview questions would be difficult for primary
Answers during the interview relies heavily on the interviewer's judgement
Observations: Seems like you would be observing for multiple days
Profile Analysis: Some assessments differ depending if the student is on the spectrum or highly functioning

Sometimes parents are in their own stages of processing. If it is a difficult category for the parents like ASD, we usually discuss the requirements for categorization/identification.

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Question about how long it takes to complete the process when a student is significantly impaired and is a danger to staff/students (going through PST 2x, etc)?

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-Discussion around formal vs. informal interviews.
-Wonder about creating more formal/sustainable interview methods (formal document to help consistency with interviews).

Discussion with parents:
Tie back into what they have said/observed at home.
Intentional about team approach, larger view of what diagnosis means for student.

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It would be helpful if we determined who (psych or SLP) should be doing the social interviewing. Discussed where we should write it up in the evaluation - under social? communication?

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Interviewing:
a lot of these questions we ask,
work as a team to identify characteristics that appear,
use the pragmatics checklist

Observations:
for some students - just watch them in the halls - behavior, conversation - count the number of times you've been interrupted, eye contact?
observe communication style - refer to prag. checklist

is it important to pursue a diagnosis/label if already being served, particularly social skills?

what about life after high school? will the diagnosis help then - to receive vocational/other outside of HS services?

Profile Analysis:
utilize Problem Solving Team discussions,
recognize subjectivity of pragmatics checklist/tests,
may choose specific test for higher functioning or focus more on cog scores when high funct,
life skills cog - don't really test at high school level - may not be testable,
other tests may be more important to focus on

Eval Mtgs with Parents:
can start the meeting with greetings and introductions, of course, but also take minute to ask "how are you/what's new/etc?"

therapy dogs help :)

start with strengths every time

go into the meeting with a positive attitude

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Social Communication Checklist.  We would like to use this as a team.

Family interview, barriers to asking these with different language/cultures.

Younger kids may have difficult understanding questions on interview.

Need for a team approach to help with observations (not just psychologist).

Our team is interested in looking at the Social Communication Questionnaire.

Feedback meetings: highlighting strengths but don't sugar coat because it will be harder in the long run for the parents and team. Develop trusting relationships with parents.

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Interviews:--Need to adapt to high school appropriate (easy to do).
-Help give parents some context
-Important to make sure you're addressing all three (S, C, B)
Regarding observations: assuming this is for initials, and not will do as many on a re-eval
Regarding measures: We think the GARS is bad. The SRS is good for an initial.
-Lots of parent education about what Autism is and isn't.

WE NEED MORE JOB TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES FOR OUR HIGHER FUNCTIONING KIDS WITH AUTISM

Better meetings: Having the conversation in advance if possible (about category) to give them a heads up
-Help assure them that is not their fault
-Use the brain as a neutral plain to explain what's going on.
-Keep the number of people low at meeting if possible
-Using as few words as possible
-Give parents time to respond. It's important to give them their time.
-Open-ended questions
-Use visuals
-Be warm, friendly, and show you care.
-Be hopeful and enthusiastic about progress
-Assume parents are doing the best they can.

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What tool could we use to communicate between team members during the evaluation process?  Possibly Google Docs.

Possibly revise the TSI - it's not the best.

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Many of the questions featured in the Family/Interview section as well as Teacher Interview are already often asked during an evaluation intake meeting.
Re:  Teacher Interview questions-we liked the idea of asking about how the child functions during specialist time.  We often overlook asking specialists, or even inviting specialists, as appropriate, to our intakes or asking for information from them to share in our evaluations.
Re:  Child Interview questions-we like all these questions!  Asking a child directly (as age appropriate) about their strengths is not only informative, but empowering.
Observation:  We like the idea of observing in specialists!
In re: Feedback meetings-From a parent perspective of one of our members: What is very helpful is starting with strengths. At the end of the day while there may be a diagnosis, the kid is the same.

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Child Interview: want to be sure we are aware of where they are developmentally.
Parent Interview: What are the parent's perspectives on the issue and their child?  What is their understanding of what is developmentally appropriate for their child

Barriers: The complexity of the issues that the child presents with.  (ex: more than one disability, TBI, ASD, VI, etc.). ; parents may be resistant, parents are unaware of the severity of their child's struggles.  Time.
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Observations:
-having more structure around this would be helpful.  Time: finding the time to get these all done, and at the appropriate times during the day.
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Profile Analysis:
creating a standard battery of tests and still being able to individualize the way we look at the children we are assessing.

are there screeners we can do prior to doing the actual assessing .
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delivering difficult news/meetings:
- being aware of what the parents are looking for or expecting.  Finding a way to communicate and address their concerns.
-building in the information along the way, so at the end when giving the "difficult" message they are prepared for it and what the child will need.  Evidence along the way-->then the findings
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-How do we weigh each box? Is one more important than another?
-Kids can't be asked all these questions in the same way so do we conduct formal or informal interviews? Is it just building background?
-We need to work on communicating with teachers regarding appropriate terms/vocabulary when describing students who may identify as having Autism

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Interviews:
Much of the family data gathered in intake, make sure there is not extensive overlap and that SLPs and Psychs are openly communicating about this gathered info.

Child Interviews: Usually informal, double interview technique --good tool for analyzing where the communication breakdown occurs. Make sure developmentally appropriate.

Add more specific questions to the developmental questions that go home?

Observations: Multiple sessions and different people useful for cross comparisons and differing perspectives--overlap can be validating.

Formal vs. informal observations

Being able to compare individual data with peers in different locations or environments.

Profile Analysis
Standardized tests don't capture the whole picture well with students that are higher levels of functioning.

Performance vs. skills deficit, difficult to oull apart

Rating scales don't accurately represent students depending on educational impact--how that can be tied together with assesments from both SLPs and Psychs

Feedback meetings:
Think about the number of people even just in attendance-always do introductions, be honest about what the meeting is about and the expectations (agenda).

Have a pre-meeting/pre-feedback to exchange info beforehand.

Use the CARS-more open ended and can be looped back in to information that they provided for the evaluation, more valuable, eases into the information as well.

Talk realistically about the spectrum, and student strengths, educating parents through the process.

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-Important to look for consistencies between interviews esp. at middle school with many more teachers than at elementary
-Should psychs/SLP's be asking parents about developmental history/medications? We usually get this info from the nurse
-Observations in unstructured environments have to happen at lunch at secondary--but this is a great source of observational data, haven't written this up for an evaluation yet but will start
-Be confident so the parent feels comfortable. Clear, concise, not too much information at first and then ask if they have questions and explain further if they ask

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It seems like for 2nd grade and lower the Child Interview questions may be difficult for them to answer.
Maybe we need more criteria for responses to make it more standardized

Family Interview:
Getting in contact with families can be a barrier sometimes... May need to rework wording of some questions to be more simple/clear

How repetitive is this SLH Social/Pragmatic questionnaire when compared with standardized measures? What extra information is obtained?

It seems like it is most helpful to use these tools as a checklist - for example, did you see X behavior, yes or no? It provides an easier way to show themes in the evaluation

How does culture of students play into using these tools?

INTAKE/FEEDBACK
We feel most of the leg work to help families feel better about disablities starts in the intake meeting. Most families that are resistant say no before we even get a chance to evaluate. It seems most beneficial to talk about Autism as DIFFERENCES that are making learning/making friends so difficult that it may be considered a disability.

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QUESTIONS:
* We like the questions
* We wonder about how to make the questions work well and cohesively and not be redundant across multiple team members (SLP, PSYCH, Nurse) - maybe options of breaking apart by evaluator or have one comprehensive list that all members would get access to
* Questions for the kids might be challenging for some students
* Interview questions with the family could be time consuming - talked about intake, but also phone interview

OBSERVATIONS:
* It would be great to have a team consensus about splitting up observations (for each person involved SLP, PSYCH, maybe counselor if willing)
* Doing the three observations seems time consuming, but warranted

PROFILE ANALYSIS
* Would like to be more intentional about which rating scales are sent out in both areas so there is less repetitiveness in rating scales

SUCCESSFUL FEEDBACK MEETINGS:
* Knowing resources related to the disability
* Conversations about the stigmas around labels (Autism) and it not highlighting what families know about their kids (i.e. higher functioning)
*  It is likely that there are emotions behind concerns (grief, denial, fear, cultural)
*  Preview the information with family before the meeting and send a draft
* Talk about student strengths

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Child interview- asking these specific questions of the child directly will be helpful .

Where did these interview questions come from and why are we using them (as opposed to something else)?

Observations tips are helpful

Psych dept also has the Autism Spectrum Rating Scale (ASRS).
Between the two depts, we have a lot of great tools!

Feedback Meetings and communication with parents:
Must build relationship with parent first. call and interview them before the intake, prepare them for the intake - what to expect. What are your child strengths? Challenges? What are your concerns? What do you think is going on? Not having intakes for reevals has been problematic as it's a missed opportunity for good team communication and connection with parents. Things may get missed, feels less personal and less comfortable.

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Child interview may be difficult because it is relationship-based.

Good questions for child interview but consider age of student

Feel that we may not get information we are looking for when observing in the classroom. Lunch is telling -- good time to observe.

When we go into the classroom it is skewed because of teacher perspective.

Usually, social pragmatic tests bomb everyone. It's like the tests (CELF) and checklists are unreasonable. It isn't necessarily indicative of their skill level.

Feedback meetings:
Talk about what they can do and then fill up the gaps.

Preface that it will be a hard discussion. Reassure them that there will be time to ask questions or process and meet again in a week.

Have ongoing conversations with the parent(s) so the feedback meeting is not the first time; build relationships.