Learning Disabilities Program

Before leaving the hospital on the day of your child's evaluation, you will make an appointment to meet with the case coordinator to get your child’s results. This feedback meeting typically takes place two to four weeks after the evaluation. We will send out a written report within eight weeks. We encourage parents to involve the school in your feedback session, typically by calling in on the phone.

Our evaluation uses a neuropsychological approach to diagnose and manage learning disabilities. This means we measure various cognitive (thinking) abilities to determine how your child’s brain functions. The goal is to understand and describe your child's learning style and how it affects his or her academic and social development.

Similar to a typical neuropsychological evaluation, our evaluation provides a profile of a child's strengths and weaknesses and provides a diagnostic summary. But because our evaluation is designed to address your child’s functioning in school, we also provide educational expertise, including extensive recommendations for teachers.

In addition, our speech and language pathologists can assess whether speech and language problems may be affecting your child’s academic, social, and cognitive development, and make recommendations accordingly. Our medical experts can diagnose possible medical causes for your child's problems and make recommendations about medication if needed. And our psychologist can determine if emotional issues are contributing to your child's problems or if learning issues are affecting your child's mental health.

Children evaluated in the Learning Disabilities Program at Boston Children's must complete all of the evaluation components. This way our specialists are able to understand the many aspects of your child's abilities and use that information when interpreting their own findings. The individual experts are also able to combine your child's overall profile of strengths and weaknesses in their individual evaluations. Working together, our team often discovers problems in areas that are not obvious in a classroom setting and can predict problems that are not yet apparent.

Yes. When scheduling your appointment, tell our program coordinator that you’d like to be on the waiting list. You must have a confirmed appointment before you can be placed on the waiting list. We will contact you if an appointment becomes available.

If a child is sick, we do our best to reschedule the appointment in a timely fashion. Please notify us as soon as possible if your child is sick or you have an emergency. We will make every effort to arrange an appointment swap between you and another patient scheduled in the near future. If this is not possible, you will be rescheduled for the first available appointment and placed at the top of the waiting list.

Your child’s evaluation has six parts, one for each specialist on the team. Each part is billed separately.

• The neurology, neuropsychology, and psychology components can often be billed to your insurance with the usual co-pays or deductibles.
• The oral and written language, mathematics, and case coordination components cannot be billed to insurance and are typically paid by the family, although they may be covered by your child’s school.

Watch the following video for financial information:

You may be able to have your child's school help pay for the evaluation if your child is currently on an Individual Education Program (IEP) and has been evaluated by the school within the last 16 months.

Watch this video for more details on school funding. You are also welcome to contact our office with questions or for more information.

• Call us at 617-355-2868.
• International: +1-617-355-5209
• Request an appointment online
• Email our program coordinator: LDProgram@childrens.harvard.edu.