By Claudia L’Amoreaux
Schools today face a range of challenges—regional staffing shortages, growing volumes of evaluation requests, and periodic spikes in student referrals. The result is often the same: despite educators’ best efforts, too many students wait too long for evaluations and school teams lack timely data needed for effective educational planning.
Comprehensive special education evaluations combine formal and informal assessments with observations, interviews with parents and teachers, and other sources of information. Assessments are central to that process. As Dr. Geremy Grant, a nationally certified school psychologist and clinical assessment support expert, observed in a March 2022 piece: the pandemic interrupted special education assessments nationwide, producing long delays that left many students waiting for identification and services.
In response, many districts have expanded the use of teletherapy and remote assessment models to keep evaluations on track. Remote evaluation provides a viable option for delivering psychoeducational testing, speech-language assessment, and related services while addressing staffing constraints and public-health concerns.
Closing the Gap
When students do not receive timely evaluations, districts risk missing legal timelines and students can miss critical opportunities to qualify for individualized education programs (IEPs). Those delays may prevent students from accessing services, accommodations, and modifications that allow meaningful participation in general education. The consequences can include stalled progress, missed developmental windows, and long-term effects on academic and social-emotional outcomes.
Delays also strain clinicians. Many school-based practitioners devote a large portion of their time to assessing and serving students with special needs, and growing assessment backlogs increase stress and reduce capacity for direct intervention. Remote evaluations can reduce these backlogs, allowing clinicians to manage caseloads more effectively and ensure students receive timely recommendations, supports, and interventions.
Remote evaluation — a standard service delivery option today
Several school systems have integrated remote evaluation into their service delivery models for practical reasons long before the pandemic, and demand for these services increased during and after COVID-19. For example, the Ogle County Education Cooperative in Illinois, which serves multiple districts, has used remote evaluation to maintain services when staffing and pandemic conditions limited in-person options. In another example, a rural district in New Hampshire first relied on online evaluations when a shared speech-language pathologist went on leave. After positive results, the district expanded online services to include psychoeducational assessments and has continued that practice to increase capacity and efficiency.
District leaders report multiple benefits from online assessment models. Using remote professionals to conduct evaluations can free onsite staff to focus on therapy, classroom support, and program development. With an onsite support person present during remote testing sessions, districts can preserve testing fidelity while extending access to credentialed professionals who may not be locally available.
Do online assessments work?
Remote assessments administered live by fully credentialed professionals are now widely accepted and guided by numerous professional organizations. Research and equivalency studies have shown that many psychoeducational assessment batteries yield comparable results when administered remotely versus in person. Notable equivalency studies have evaluated instruments such as the WJ IV cognitive and achievement batteries, the RIAS-2 cognitive battery, and the WISC-V. These studies found comparable outcomes between remote and in-person administrations when proper protocols, technology, and training were in place.
Professional guidance emphasizes careful implementation: choosing appropriate instruments for tele-assessment, ensuring standardized administration conditions, training onsite facilitators, and maintaining data security and confidentiality. When these elements are in place, remote assessment offers a reliable path to timely identification and service planning for students with suspected disabilities.
Remote evaluation should be viewed as a complementary tool in a district’s assessment toolkit. It can increase equity of access to qualified evaluators, reduce wait times, and help schools meet legal and educational obligations without compromising quality.
Practical benefits and considerations
Districts adopting remote evaluations report several practical benefits: faster turnaround for assessment results, better allocation of onsite staff time, and expanded access to specialists. Key considerations for success include securing technology that supports standardized test delivery, training onsite staff to facilitate testing sessions, ensuring clear communication with families, and following professional and ethical guidelines for tele-assessment.
Remote evaluations do not replace the need for in-person observation and collaborative team decision-making, but they can reduce backlogs and ensure timely access to evaluations and services that students need to progress academically and socially.
About the author
Claudia L’Amoreaux works at the intersection of technology and education with a focus on the future of learning. An early adopter of educational technology, she has provided vision, strategy, and content for online learning initiatives since 1995. She writes the Mindful Digital Life blog for parents, caregivers, and educators.
This article was originally published by The Learning Counsel, a research institute and news media hub focused on providing context for the shift in education to digital curriculum.