How To Prepare Your Child For Testing

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Here are some ways you can introduce the evaluation process to your child.

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Preparing for Testing

Preparing your child for testing can greatly contribute to their best performance so the team can get the best picture of their skills. Here are some things that can help to make sure they are ready for testing:

Encourage your child to get a good night’s sleep before the testing session. Getting good sleep can help with concentration, thinking skills, and overall alertness.
Have a healthy breakfast before testing. This helps to fuel their brain and improve their ability to focus and complete the different activities.

Starting the Conversation

Your child may have questions about the testing process. Introducing testing to your child may sound like this:

“I’ve noticed you’re working really hard at _____ this year, but it still seems pretty tough, and I’m not sure why. I’ve been thinking that if we knew more about how you learn best, your teachers and I could do a better job helping you. Did you know there is a person from the school who can help?”

The setting where you have this conversation may help, too! Consider chatting with your child over ice cream, while taking the dog for a walk, or playing catch. This will help it to not feel too “serious” or “scary.”

Describing the Process

When your child completes testing with me, we will do different activities together that will help them (and you and the teachers, if relevant) understand how they learn best. This could be puzzles, word games, or chatting about what they like to do. The “What to Expect” Handouts describe each process in more detail. Testing helps identify their strengths and figure out why things are hard right now. Explaining the process to your child may sound like this:

“Staci Suits is a school psychologist who will help us figure out how your brain learns best. You’ll do different activities. Some of them will be fun, some will be easy, and some of them may challenge you. Just try your best, and if something is tricky, let Staci know so you can work together to figure out why!”

Getting Their Input

Your child is encouraged to ask their own questions about testing. This not only helps the team know what is important to your child, but gets them more invested in the process. Getting their input may sound like this:

“There are things I’d like to know to help me support you better, but I’m wondering what you’d like to know more about. If you can’t think of anything right now, that’s okay. We can chat more about this later or make a list of questions together!”

As your child thinks of questions (such as, “Why does writing take so long for me?”), please pass those along to me!

Using Their Words

Testing can be an empowering process, especially if we help identify problems your child wants to solve. It gives purpose to testing and builds a shared understanding. For example, the concern may be executive functioning skills. Your child isn’t likely to say, “I have poor executive functioning skills.” Instead, they may say, “I don’t know what to write!” or “I can never find anything!” Using their language may sound like this:

“I’ve noticed that homework time feels stressful for us, especially when you are asked to find your notebook and write. I wonder if there’s a way we can figure this out together.”

After Testing

You can help your child reflect on their experience with testing by asking the following questions:

“How did testing go today?”
“What did you enjoy most about meeting with the School Psychologist?”
“Was there anything you found interesting or challenging?”
“Can you tell me about an activity that was easy or fun for you?”
“Did you learn anything about yourself during testing?”
“Is there anything else you want to share about how testing went?”

Adapted with permission by Rachele Teson, Ed.S., NCSP

Staci Suits, Ed.D.

From Helping Kids Ask Assessment Questions & Collaborative Reflective Questions

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