Education Across the States · Resources
What the tests in a school evaluation are, what the law requires of them, and how to read the results
Every special education decision starts with an evaluation, and every evaluation leans on a small set of standardized instruments. This section collects the tools themselves — the publisher's own pages for the four instruments our coverage returns to most — alongside the federal rules an evaluation has to follow, the professional guidance on using cognitive testing well, and our own episode series walking through each tool in plain language. Each entry is labeled with whose work it is.
One caution that applies to the whole page: these are restricted professional instruments. The publisher sells them only to qualified professionals (each product page states its qualification level), and no single score from any of them can decide a child's eligibility — federal law says so explicitly, in the regulation linked below. What any reader can do is understand what a tool measures, what a complete evaluation must include, and what questions to ask when the report lands.
The four instruments below are published by Pearson, and each entry links to Pearson's own product page — the authoritative source for the current edition, age range, and scoring options.
Pearson — Publisher
The standard cognitive ability battery for school-age children, ages 6:0–16:11. It produces a Full Scale IQ and primary and ancillary index scores across verbal comprehension, visual spatial, fluid reasoning, working memory, and processing speed — the profile a team uses to understand how a child reasons, not just whether a child qualifies. Core subtests take about an hour; administered on paper or digitally through Q-interactive.
Pearson — Publisher
The achievement counterpart to the WISC-V: an individually administered measure of reading, written expression, mathematics, and oral language for ages 4:0–50:11 (prekindergarten through grade 12 and beyond). Its composites include the Dyslexia Index scores, built for dyslexia screening. Because it is co-normed in the Wechsler family, teams routinely pair it with the WISC-V in learning-disability evaluations.
Pearson — Publisher
A cognitive battery spanning ages 2:6–17:11, organized into Early Years and School-Age batteries — which makes it the go-to instrument for preschool and early-childhood evaluations, where the WISC-V does not reach. It yields a General Conceptual Ability score and a Special Nonverbal Composite, offers out-of-level testing for children who fall outside the standard ranges, and includes an Early Years Spanish Supplement for assessing young Spanish-speaking children in their primary language. Pearson now also offers the DAS-II NU School-Age normative update, with refreshed school-age norms and digital scoring; the items and structure are unchanged.
Pearson — Publisher
A brief screen of verbal and nonverbal intelligence, ages 4:0–90:0, in about twenty minutes: Verbal Knowledge and Riddles against a Matrices subtest, producing verbal, nonverbal, and composite scores. It is a screening and re-evaluation tool — useful for identifying who needs a comprehensive evaluation, and explicitly not a substitute for one. Pearson has since released the KBIT-2 Revised, with modernized items and updated norms; districts may hold either edition, so check which one a report used.
The instruments are only half the story. Federal law sets the conditions every evaluation must meet, and the federally funded parent center explains the whole process in plain language.
U.S. Department of Education
The binding text. An evaluation must use a variety of assessment tools and strategies; no single measure may serve as the sole criterion for eligibility or programming; instruments must be technically sound, administered by trained personnel, selected and administered so as not to be discriminatory, and given in the child's native language or mode of communication; and the child must be assessed in all areas related to the suspected disability. When a report rests on one score, this is the page to open.
Center for Parent Information and Resources
The federally funded parent center's complete walkthrough of the evaluation process: how children are identified, prior written notice, parental consent, the 60-day federal timeline (or the state's own clock), the required scope of a full and individual evaluation, determining eligibility, and what to do when a family disagrees with the results. Also available in Spanish.
National Association of School Psychologists
The school psychologists' professional association on the hardest eligibility call in the building: identifying a specific learning disability. The package includes the principles for SLD eligibility developed with the National Center for Learning Disabilities and companion briefs on what a comprehensive evaluation contains, how cognitive assessment data should be used selectively within an evaluation, and how instructional response data fits. NASP's own position: a multidisciplinary evaluation, and no single endorsed method of SLD identification.
Our episode series takes each instrument in turn: what it measures, how its scores are built, how to read the report, and how the results should — and should not — drive an IEP. Listen from the show index; new tools are added as the series continues.
Education Across the States
Published so far: WISC-V: What the Test Measures and WISC-V: Reading Results and Building IEPs; KBIT-2: What the Test Measures, Reading Results and Building IEPs; and the WIAT-IV deep dives — Part 1A: What the Test Measures and Part 1B: Reading Results and Building IEPs. The DAS-II episodes follow in the series.
Education Across the States
The tools are national; the clocks are not. Our state guides give each state's own referral, consent, and evaluation timelines, in English and Spanish — California, Oregon, and Washington are live on the Resources hub, free in full on subscribe.