Does special assessment results stay in a child'e record?

We have a daughter who will be turning 3 in December. She has been
going to a montessorie early preschool class for last couple of months.
She is a healthy, active girl. But she is having a tough time getting
into the flow in school. Primarily she has a short attention span and
moves from one task to another very quickly and as she likes. She
behaves like that to some extant at home too. So the school childcare
specialist is suggesting we go to the local School district and get a
special assessment done. The teaching staff says that she has amazing
memory, a really good vocabulary and otherwise very intelligent. But it
is difficult to get her to sit down for a few minutes or engage her in
a conversation.

Penny Gaines...

I tend to agree with the other posters. A desire to flit from activity
to activity is entirely normal in a 2yo: some 2yos will concentrate
on one activity, but not most of them.

It is less common that 2yos won't engage in a converstation. I don't
mean that every other 2-3yo chats away merrily! But why isn't she
having conversations? Is she distracted by other things she could be
doing (normal) or is she shy (normal) or does she not understand that
converstaions work by people talking in turns(not normal. Maybe she
has a mild hearing problem, and in a noisy classroom can't distinguish
the voice of the person talking to her.)

tedneeley...

Not the op but..
OP's name suggests that she may be bilingual. Bilingual kids tend to
not talk as early as other kids. YMMV.

Lesa...

I teach 2 year olds, and have for 12 years. I also have a degree in
developmental psych. Flitting from one activity to another can be normal
for 2 year olds, it can also be a sign of a problem. 2 year olds are most
definitely able to focus on activities, sometimes for extensive periods of
time. Its hard to tell from a short posting if this particular child is
showing warning signs. Does she have difficulty spending at least 5 minutes
in an activity that interests her? Is she unable to sit quietly for 2-5
minutes when the circumstances warrant it; while someone reads a book or
changes her diaper for example. Does she get easily angry or frustrated
with activities prior to switching to a new one? If these questions received
yes answers then an assessment may be best.

I have a son with "special needs". I understand your hesitations and
concerns with labeling. I also know that the younger problems are identified
the quicker assistance can be put into place. The quicker assistance can be
put into place the less likely it is that any circumstances will cause
permanent difficulties later in life.

I would be more than willing to discuss this with you further off line if
you want.

My question is about the assessment. Is the result going to be
permament in some sort of school record? We dont want her to get
branded as "Special Need" and always classified as such for the rest of
her education life. We are not against the assessment. We would like to
know if there is a special need and provide the necessary support. We
are just concerned about this report being in her school record and
people jumping into conclusions at every incident in her life.

Will it be better to go to a private assessment center and keep the
result confidential? We are reasonably ok with finances and should be
able to pay for a private assessment session.

We are in Northern California and in a good school district.

tedneeley...

My 3 year old goes to montessori. According to her teachers she "has
difficulty choosing work. she keeps wandering around observing other
kids working. She just likes to sit in a chair and look at books." I
don't see anything out of ordinary in this. Likewise I don't see
anything strange in your kid's behavior either. Don't worry about it.
If the teachers give you too much grief, switch schools.

toypup...

Wow. She sounds normal to my untrained mind. I would think that it's a bit
early to draw any conclusions, simply because lots of kids that age are like
that and perfectly normal.

Ericka Kammerer...

In general, it's not a big deal to have an early
assessment like this on a child's record. Many, many kids
have some issues early on that, with attention, are completely
eliminated by the time they're off to kindergarten. At
this age, virtually no reputable professional would diagnose
something like ADHD, which is probably one of the dicier
terms to have in a record. And frankly, many parents who
have *fought* to get diagnoses in a child's record so that
their school-aged child could get appropriate accommodations
in the classroom despair of ever getting teachers to *really*
read the file and deal with it, so it's far from a foregone
conclusion that every teacher from now until her high school
graduation will have their noses rubbed in whatever diagnosis.
If you have her assessed privately, you will have
more control over the information, whatever it is, and its
dissemination. You'll also have more control over who does
the assessment and how. You might get it done faster than
you could working through the school system. However, you
might also shell out a pretty penny and might have more of
a challenge getting the results accepted by the school
system if it turns out that your daughter would benefit
from services, now or in the future. At the very least,
if you decide to go private, you might want to make sure
that the assessor and assessments are of the sort that
would be acceptable by the school system if you ever needed
to go that route.
Personally, I'd do what I thought was best for
the child without worrying too much over the consequences
of having a record. If I could do it better/faster/whatever
privately, I'd do that. If it worked better through the
school system, I'd go that route.

Best wishes,
Ericka